


If you're looking for an ass to kiss

by grapehyasynth



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Allez Vous, Barn parties, Baseball, Bickering, Blouse Barn, Cheesecake, Civic Engagement, Confessions, Confrontations, Dates That Aren't Dates, David Rose is a Good Person, David's a dick until he's not, Drinking, Enemies to acquaintances to friends to enemies to friends to best friends to lovers, Family, Fluff, Friendship, Ganache tortes, Gen, Honest Conversations, I am very bad at tagging someone help me, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Like canon but different, M/M, Negotiations, POV David Rose, Patrick is the mayor, RAMC, Rated T for language and innuendo, Red Ribbons, Retail, Roleplay, Shower Product, Strategically placed bunnies, Teasing, Texting, Turkey Shoot, Untitled David Rose Project, Viennetta, Wobbly Elm, Yoga, awkward dinner parties, camo - Freeform, enchiladas, games night, in a nutshell, lanyards, woodworking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 35,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27869638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: “Oh, *Patrick*,” he repeats. “You were talking to my dad earlier. You’re the, um, the town curator, or the conductor-”“The mayor,” Patrick corrects gently, still grinning.“The mayor,” David echoes. “Like Bloomberg.”“Yes,” Patrick says, and the way he tucks his hands into his pockets and grins even wider, he’s clearly peacocking, poor thing. “Yeah. Exactly like Bloomberg.”____OR, everything's the same, except Patrick is already in town - and he's the mayor.A series of vignettes, some of which became fics unto themselves.
Relationships: Alexis Rose & David Rose, Patrick Brewer & Stevie Budd, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose
Comments: 163
Kudos: 280





	1. Season 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to reymanova for continuing to visit the Qrek with me, to hagface and petrodobreva for kicking some ideas around, and to the Barn at large for game night madcap brilliance. 
> 
> This was meant to be a cute little series of vignettes, a low-effort fic after my previous multi-chapter work - and then it ended up becoming longer than said multi-chapter work. 
> 
> I have feelings about this thing, complicated feelings as ever, but it was actually largely more pleasant to write than previous works have been. 
> 
> It's done, and I'll be posting every other day so that I can stretch out my last few hours with it. Weird to say adieu.

**One**

David goes looking for towels, mostly to have five minutes away from Alexis for the first time since all of this started, but also because he cannot be expected to dry his _body_ with the sandpaper currently hanging in their bathroom, a room smaller than his claw-footed tub in New York. _Towels_ , he tells himself, because focusing on that will hopefully keep him from crying. 

The neon _OFFICE_ sign a few doors down draws him like - ew, he will _not_ compare himself to a moth. It’s a mark of how low they’ve all sunk that he’s even thinking it. 

There’s a man inside the office who is dressed like he belongs in a bland workplace comedy, but he’s standing on the wrong side of the desk. 

“Do you work here?” David asks him anyway. 

The man looks up, only his eyes registering surprise because it looks like someone has threaded his eyebrows straight out of existence. 

“Do I - work here?” he asks haltingly, then grins. “No, not here, at the motel.” 

“Oh.” 

“Patrick,” the man offers, and the handshake that accompanies the name reminds David. 

“Oh, _Patrick_ ,” he repeats. “You were talking to my dad earlier. You’re the, um, the town curator, or the conductor-” 

“The mayor,” Patrick corrects gently, still grinning. 

“The mayor,” David echoes. “Like Bloomberg.” 

“Yes,” Patrick says, and the way he tucks his hands into his pockets and grins even wider, he’s clearly peacocking, poor thing. “Yeah. Exactly like Bloomberg.” 

“Mmkay. So when you said you don’t work _here_ , you meant you do work _here_ ,” David clarifies, waving in what he assumes to be the general town direction. “Just not at this particular motel.” 

“That’s correct.” 

“So the scruffy guy outside who said, and I quote, _If you’re looking for an ass to kiss, it’s mine-_ He was just propositioning me, then? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time-” 

“Ah.” Patrick sighs and shakes his head. “That would be Roland, the former mayor. I should ask him to stop doing that. I think he thinks it’s funny.” 

“He certainly seemed like the kind of person to think that was funny,” David observes dryly. “But, um, I have to ask,” and sure, he’s laying it on a bit thick, but every mayor David has ever heard of has been independently wealthy, and if he has to suck up to this guy - or suck him off - to get out of this hellhole or even to just get a proper fucking towel, well, he’s done worse. “Aren’t you a little _young_ to be mayor?” 

From behind the desk comes an unattractive snort and the sound of several boxes falling, and the dark-haired girl David has been _looking for_ this _whole time_ rises into view. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” David gasps, retreating a step. “What were you _doing_ down there?” 

“Looking for a way out,” she says, nonsensically. “And to answer your question, Patrick is both too young and perfectly aged. It’s what won him the election.” 

“Aw, thanks, Stevie,” the mayor says, like any of that made a shred of sense to anyone. 

“I don’t - what does that-” 

“I was new in town,” Patrick explains, sounding eerily like David’s father when he starts a long-winded reminiscence. “And I didn’t know very many people and I was significantly younger than the incumbent, and I think people thought Roland was such a shoo-in, after twenty years on the job, that they voted for me as a joke, assuming I would be disqualified for my age. I was almost thirty, and I’ve been told I present as very mature, so I’m not sure why they all assumed that. Anyway, it turns out there’s no age minimum.” 

“Oh,” David nods, wondering when the polite moment is to ask for a towel, because he really wants this story to stop. This is probably what people in small towns do, just launch into their life stories the second they meet someone new. David used to be able to go days on end in New York without having a single personal conversation with anyone. 

“Fortunately for everyone, Patrick has more brains and balls than Roland ever did, so it hasn’t been an issue.” 

“We’ve since passed a statute that you have to be at least eighteen to run for mayor.” Patrick sounds like he’s _reassuring_ David, as if David cares about any of this. “We also closed a loophole that would’ve allowed non-human candidates. Surprisingly controversial.” 

“I bet,” David hums, though he is trying very hard not to contemplate what that town hall meeting must’ve looked like. “Um, this has been _so_ helpful, and informative,” and ripe material for a headache, he doesn’t add, “but my sister is having a really hard time adjusting, and I just wanted to get her some extra towels so she can, like, do this soothing spa treatment for herself-” 

“That’s sweet of you, David, to help your sister like that,” Patrick says seriously. 

“Oh, the things we do for our family,” David sighs beatifically. 

Stevie’s eyeing him like she can smell his bullshit, but he doesn’t particularly care if she likes or trusts him. _She’s_ not the one who runs this town and, hopefully, has the money and connections to get him out of here. Patrick, though, Mr. Small-Town Bloomberg - with Patrick he’ll work to keep on good terms. 

“There’s a load in the dryer now,” Stevie says. “I’ll bring some when they’re done.” 

“Great! Thanks. Room 7.” He raps the counter with his knuckles and treats them both to his most New York smile. “Thanks so much. This has been a real - yeah.” 

He power walks back to their room before either of the townies - or Roland, the scruffy ex-mayor still lingering in the parking lot - can try to re-engage him in conversation. 

  
  


**Two**

The mayor is not, in fact, independently wealthy. 

The mayor is not independently wealthy and lives with another man - not in a fun way, but rather in the sense that he rents a room from this man, who seems to run eight of the town’s ten businesses. The business man has even put the fact that the mayor rents a room from him _on his business materials_ : “Even the mayor does it!” Which is so vague and surely unlikely to move any potential customers. 

So the mayor is _not_ actually at _all_ like Bloomberg, and David learns all this because his parents are trying to sell the town ( _his_ town), and to do so they have to have to have a family dinner at the mayor’s, which really means dinner at this business man’s house. Like, the business man is there, even though he has nothing to do with the town-selling. 

David’s not sure who cooked, but dinner is delicious, so good he even stays through for dessert. Normally he’d have faked a migraine about twenty minutes in, but either the mayor is shirking his duties in favor of cultivating a culinary prowess or this Ray guy should add catering to his already-overloaded business cards. 

Dessert is meant to be a viennetta, he’s pretty sure. It’s very much _not_ one, and when he asks, “Is this a viennetta?” both Ray and Patrick look at him with pleasant ignorance, but whatever mommy blogger hack recipe they’d used had _definitely_ originated, several iterations back, from a viennetta. David’s glad to know sugar and dairy and alcohol will still be there for him if he runs out of mollifying pills before they get out of this godforsaken town. 

And while he’s disappointed the mayor is not independently wealthy - though he’s relieved he can abandon the project of sucking off/up to this too young, too pale, too earnest mayor - the other bonus of Patrick’s unconventional living situation is that Ray has an early bedtime. David suspects that’s code for ‘Patrick has an early bedtime but is too embarrassed to say so because he’s the mayor and also, like, thirty and has therefore gotten Ray to pretend to have an early bedtime in his stead’. 

So they finish early enough for David to make it to the truck party his sister had ditched dinner for. The party is shitty, and the beer is shitty, but Alexis gives him the first real laugh he’s had since they arrived here. Because _she_ , it turns out, has not met the mayor yet, and it turns out Ray’s early bedtime was _not_ code, because the poor random Alexis chooses to attack with a selfie makeout is-

“The _mayor_ ?” she shrieks as they leave the party. “ _Ew!_ ”

David savors the look of abject confusion he’d seen on Patrick’s face after Alexis had released him, and he only vaguely wonders if Patrick had tasted of viennetta. 

  
  


**Three**

“Hi, David!”

Some day David will stop being surprised by the way things happen in this town. Here he is, already embarrassed enough to be auditioning for a role as a _bag boy_ at a store named _Brebner’s_ , which has the aural quality of toads’ warts, and now the mayor is in the queue. 

“Oh, hi, Patrick,” he says. He very pointedly doesn’t look at the mayor’s purchases (protein powder, a six-pack of Coors, a bulk box of plain oatmeal, store brand 3-in-1 shower product - literally, it’s called _shower product_ ), nor does he judge those purchases ( _shower. product_.). “Find everything you need?” 

“I did, I did.” Patrick smiles at David, and at Marge (or was it Mabel? Magda?) and her green apron and her permanent frown, and at the old lady accepting her bagged groceries from David. “I can always find what I need at Brebner’s! You work here now, then?” 

David glances quickly at Marge, who scowls. “Um, I’m still in the interview phase,” he says delicately. 

“Ah, I see. A try-out. Well, I hope you make first string.” 

David palms the three-pack of bar soap as the cashier slides it towards him. “Um. I don’t know what that means, but. Thanks.” 

Patrick smiles at that, too. 

David looks at the items accumulating in his to-be-bagged pile, at the tin of sardines and the orange juice with pulp. “So, I guess Ray’s the cook in the household?” 

Patrick’s little eyebrows shoot up and Marge audibly gasps. 

“I am _so_ sorry, Mayor Patrick,” she rushes to say, like Patrick’s the pope or something. Though it’s really the first time he’s heard anyone be even slightly deferential towards Patrick. David wonders what the mayor’s actual powers are, or if he even has any; it’s pretty immediately clear that doesn’t financially benefit. David wonders if the mayor can punish people. David wonders if _he’s_ about to be punished. David wonders if he’s ever been this horny and pathetic. 

“That’s okay,” Patrick says, still smiling, laughing even, as he pays entirely in cash like the old man he is. He’s too young for his job and too old for his age. “David will just have to try my famous barbecue sardines so he can know how wrong he is.” 

David doesn’t mime vomiting into the brown paper bag, and for that great restraint alone he should land the job. 

**Four**

“And _then_ ,” Alexis huffs, as she lifts another pile of David’s sweaters. “Oh my god, David, _then_ -” 

“Yeah?” he calls, leading the way out of their room and down the sidewalk towards the extra room where Stevie has said he can put his clothes. 

“And then he _ditched_ me! Just, like, left me alone in the middle of nowhere.” 

He unburdens her of the sweaters before she can fling them down on the bed like she’d done the last bunch. He knows he’s taking advantage of her desperation for a competent conversation partner in order to get her help with this sartorial relocation, but, honestly, they’re both benefiting. “Well, where did he go?” 

“Okay, so I _thought_ he was maybe having an affair? Because I followed him-” 

“Obviously.” 

“And he went to this barn, right, and my first thought was that’s where he makes the drugs, because you know that’s what he’s doing his community service for-” 

David had been surprised to hear that this town has mushrooms other than the kind he sees growing on all the benches at the park, and he’s tucked Mutt Schitt’s name away for future reference. 

“But then there was this woman, and they seemed _very_ close, if you know what I mean.” Alexis waggles her eyebrows at David and he rolls his eyes and turns to consider the hanger and bag options for his clothes, now that they’re here. “But then it was just his mom.” 

“Ew! What?!” 

“Not like _that_ , David, gross. Not _all_ rural people do incense.” 

“Incest,” David corrects her. 

“Yeah, that. So then I got bored, and I went to the cafe for a smoothie, and we kind of both got in trouble with that lady on council, Rhonda, I think it was, because Mutt found me at the cafe and then Rhonda found us both there when we were still both supposed to be working, _but_ Mutt told me that he was going back to the barn to check on his dad.” 

David frowns. “Don’t his parents have their own house?” 

“They _do_ ,” Alexis nods, “but I guess Mutt and Roland used to be estranged, which is so dramatic, I mean, can you _imagine_ not being close to your family? So tragic.” 

David pauses in refolding a sweater to stare at her. “Yeah, tragic,” he says sardonically, but it misses her by a mile. 

“So they were estranged because of Mutt’s lifestyle, which is kind of fair, but then Roland lost his job and I guess they’ve bonded over, like, doing nothing?” 

David, who’s fairly sure, based on his recent internet searches, that he now qualifies as unemployed since he made that attempt at getting a job at the grocery store, takes umbrage at this. “Not all unemployed people do nothing, Alexis.” 

“Okay, I _know_ _that,_ David, I’m specifically saying _Mutt and Roland_ do nothing. Like, Mutt said that himself, that they do nothing. They just hang out in Mutt’s barn all day, drinking and getting high and watching TV.” 

“So remind me why he left you on a creepy abandoned road with just that pointy stick to protect yourself?” 

“He had to check that his dad wasn’t too crossfaded to get home,” Alexis sighs, flopping onto the bed next to David’s folding. “But his mom had come to get Roland anyway so it didn’t matter.” 

“Okay, no offense,” David says, “but this is the _least_ exciting gossip you’ve had since you were nine years old.” 

“You think I don’t _know that_ , David?” Alexis huffs, and he has to grab a KTX piece away from her because she’s threatening to burrow her gross face in it in frustration. “But that’s, like, all the gossip there _is_ around here. It’s so _boring_.” She frowns down at the red sheets, pulling a little bit of the fabric over her nails to see how the color would look as polish. “I wonder how it feels, to lose an election to someone barely older than your son.” 

“Um, have you _met_ the mayor? I don’t think there’s a lot for Roland to get an inferiority complex about.” 

Alexis smirks. “Have you met _Roland_ , though?” 

David catches himself on a laugh; they’re both terrible people. “That’s fair.” 

“Maybe _I_ can be the gossip,” Alexis muses. “Like, not as in the person who says the gossip, but the person that everyone gossips about? It’s kind of my thing. Since Mutt’s not sleeping with his mom, maybe I should go for it with him.”

“What about the mayor?”

“What _about_ the mayor?”

“You kissed him? At that party?” David reminds her. 

“I did,” Alexis confirms, with a pleased little shimmy. 

“Was that - was it - what’s going on there, then?” David asks, rising from his squat on the floor to go look for a towel or a rag to wipe down the inside of the wardrobe. 

“Oh, nothing.” Alexis has her phone trained on the ceiling mirror when he reemerges from the bathroom; she’s probably trying to get some kind of faux-artsy photo, which she won’t, because David already tried and no angles or filters can make this room look cute. “I mean, I guess dating the mayor _would_ basically be the equivalent of dating Leo or Harry, in our old life.”

Personally, this comparison makes David think she’s adjusting to their new surroundings _far_ too quickly, but he nods and hums supportively. 

“But he hasn’t even asked for my number yet, which in my experience means he’s either newly married or gay.” 

David tries to remember if he’d seen a ring, or even a ring tan, on the mayor, the few times they’ve interacted. “That’s never stopped you before.” 

“Rude, David!” 

“I’m not judging,” David insists. “It’s never stopped me either.” 

This makes Alexis laugh, and as much as David really hates everything about what he’s doing right now - up to his elbows in a plastic laminate cabinet, swiping out dust balls, making a concession to the likely longevity of their stay here in hell-on-earth, discussing the tawdry lives of forgettable people - he’s glad for that, for Alexis’s laugh, for being the one to make her laugh. 

**Five**

This cute little games night is shaping up to be a cute little unmitigated disaster. 

“Um, Stevie,” David says, “why is the mayor here? I thought we agreed he didn’t fit tonight’s _vibe_.”

Stevie pops open one of the beers Mutt had brought and inhales the resultant foam as she glances at the door. “Don’t look at me. After our lovely conversation earlier I decided not to invite anyone.” 

“Hey, everybody, this is _Patrick_ ,” Alexis announces to the room, as if anyone assembled here for games night doesn’t know the mayor. “I ran into him at the cafe earlier and _insisted_ he join us.” 

“She did,” Patrick chuckles. “She did insist. Uh, I brought whiskey, is there-”

“I’ll take that,” Stevie says quickly. She shoves her barely-started beer at David, who grimaces at the saliva-slick lip of the bottle and deposits it back on the counter next to its unopened fellows. He’s not drinking tonight; he needs a clear mind for gameplay. 

“And Patrick’s obviously going to be on my team, because Stevie told me he’s _super_ amazing at games,” Alexis gushes. 

David smacks Stevie’s arm and hisses, “Excuse you, where was that assessment when we were considering prospective participants? I wasn’t privy to this info!” 

Stevie doesn’t look the least bit abashed. He doesn’t know why he still expects that, or any humanly decent reactions, from her at this point. “To be fair, I think I said in the context of _sports_ games, but she’s not wrong. He’s basically a young Alex Trebek.” 

“And you didn’t find that relevant to share with the class?” he hisses. 

Alexis claps for everyone’s attention. “So, let’s pick teams!” 

“What are we playing, though?” David asks. 

“It doesn’t matter, David, you always need teams for games night.” 

“No, because not all games require teams,” David protests. “Like Monopoly-”

“Oh god, are we playing Monopoly?” Stevie mutters from behind Alexis. She empties the whiskey she’s just poured herself in one swig and starts refilling her cup. 

“No, we will _not_ be playing Monopoly, because the box from the lobby is missing half the pieces,” David says. 

“We could just play with random tokens,” Twyla suggests. “Like rings, or bottle caps, or-”

“Love that energy, Twyla, but I would _not_ recommend playing Monopoly with David, because he memorized the rule book when he was ten and he’s been a real B about it ever since.”

“If there are no _rules_ , there’s no _point,_ ” David snarls. 

Patrick, who’s been watching all this with blatant amusement, turns away with a cough that sounds suspiciously laugh-like. 

“Why don’t we start with charades?” Mutt interjects, holding up the slips of paper David had painstakingly cut up earlier that day. “Everyone likes charades.” 

“Mmm! _Great_ idea, Mutt,” Alexis gushes. “And David, you know what you need for charades? _Teams_.” 

Charades is not a great idea. Nor is Taboo. Or Uno. Or Scrabble. And the problem, for once, is not Alexis. 

The problem is Patrick Brewer, mayor of Schitt’s Creek and also, apparently, of petty, hypermasculine, unnecessary competitiveness. 

Well, really, the first problem is when Alexis frowns down at the paper she selects and says, “Um, this just says _my nana_ , and David and I never knew our grandmothers, and also how would any of you be able to guess that anyway?” 

“Oh, sorry,” Twyla laughs, “that’s _my_ nana.” 

Next to David, Patrick perpetrates another cough to cover a snort of laughter. It’s the last time all night that David will agree with him.

They have a similar problem when Stevie draws _The Helio Centrics_. “I don’t know what the fuck this is,” she announces. “Is this a science thing?” 

“You don’t know them? Ah, you gotta check them out, Stevie, they’re a great band,” Mutt says. “Here, I could put them on right now-”

“No, no music, it’ll just be distracting. Stevie, you can throw it back and pick another one,” David tells her. 

“No you can’t,” Patrick says. 

“Yes you c-- great, now time is up.” David doesn’t even bother fixing Patrick with a withering glare; he’s not worth it. 

They finally score a point on _Cafe Tropicale_ , a prompt for which Mutt spends half his time gesturing emphatically at Twyla, eliciting such guesses as “girlfriend!” (from Alexis, clearly fishing, and also _not her team_ ) and “tarot card readings” (from Stevie, which, okay, oddly specific and David will be following up), before he locates a mug, gestures between it and Twyla, and then wipes his brow pointedly. Stevie and David shout the answer at the same time and almost high-five before they catch themselves. 

Alexis, pouting because her team is losing, suggests they switch to Taboo, which is much worse, especially in terms of yelliness. Twyla starts, and she only gets through two cards in the allotted time, though at least she _follows the rules_ ; Mutt keeps trying to do “sounds like”, which David would normally jump down his throat for, but they’re on the same team. Patrick, meanwhile, jumps down Mutt’s throat each time, leaning over the table, all excited and huffy. 

“Okay, you don’t even have the buzzer!” David snaps at him eventually, gesturing to where Alexis is pressed in close to Mutt’s shoulder, ostensibly to referee for any infractions. 

“I thought without rules there’s no point?” Patrick asks innocently. 

The score is nearly even when it gets around to David, and of course Patrick, seated to David’s left, takes over buzzer duty from Stevie. 

The card David chooses first is _duck_. “Okay, um...”

Patrick’s leaning in to check the no-go words on the card, and David gets a woodsy scent from his hair, like he’s scrubbed it with one of those tacky dashboard air fresheners. Of course now David’s picturing a pine forest, which makes him think of that time their hosts in Kittilä had roasted wild duck over a pine forest... 

“David!” Stevie yells. 

David jumps; the sand is almost halfway through the timer. Now he’s not only stressed but he’s also hungry. 

“Okay,” he tries again, looking at the card. “Um... confit.” 

Blank stares. Absolutely fucking blank. Fuck. As if Stevie or _Mutt_ has ever eaten duck confit. 

“Cassoulet?” he tries again. Across the table, Alexis lets out a snort. 

“Just a few seconds,” Patrick mutters. 

“I can _see_ that, thanks _so_ much,” David snarls. “Ugh, fuck!” 

Patrick blares the infraction buzzer right into David’s ear. “Oh, sorry. I thought you were doing _rhymes with_.” Time’s officially up, so David flings the card onto the table in frustration. “You know. Duck, f-”

“Yeah, we get it,” David snaps. “Twyla, you’re up.” 

They don’t make it many rounds after that, and when Dane and his _buddies_ show up, Alexis peels off for what she calls “the real party”, which David finds offensive. With her gone, they’re down to an odd number and can’t play any of the teamed games, so they switch to Uno, which they probably all should’ve known wouldn’t work. 

“You must know that’s not actually allowed, right?” Patrick asks, half-laughing - he’s _contesting_ David’s knowledge of Uno gameplay and he’s _laughing_ . “You don’t _really_ believe you can draw-two stack and get away with that, do you?”

“Let’s look it up,” David suggests, holding Patrick’s gaze, scrabbling for the ragged Uno box they’ve discarded on Alexis’s empty chair. “Where’s the fucking rulebook?” 

“Oh, there’s definitely no rulebook here,” Stevie says, playing her next card on the pile as if they hadn’t _all agreed_ to pause as David and Patrick figure out this _rules_ situation. “I’m pretty sure this game has been in the lobby longer than I’ve been on this earth.” 

David scowls but reaches for his phone. “I’m sure we can find it online.” 

“Can we trust that, though?” Patrick asks, reaching out a hand as if to stop David. The _temerity_. “You can’t just pull up some random thread on Quora--”

“As _if_ I don’t know how to properly vet my sources,” David huffs. “I’ve been enough tabloids’ confidential informant to know how to sniff out a phony.” 

“Okay,” Patrick says, voice too light, “I just know that some older people don’t have the same familiarity with the tricks internet hucksters use.” 

David gasps and clutches his phone to his chest. “ _Older people_ ? How _dare_ you-”

“What about Scrabble?” Twyla pipes up. 

Scrabble is the final straw. It doesn’t help that Dane’s put on some kind of low-brow, testosterone-fueled, fist-pumping music, or that Patrick mutters to himself as he looks at his tiles and sometimes squeezes his lower lip between his forefinger and thumb as he ponders. David can barely even hear himself _think_. 

“That’s cheating!” he finally bursts out, the sixth time Patrick plays a two-letter word. 

“Not cheating,” Stevie says. She’s on her third glass of whiskey and seems to be enjoying everything that’s happening. 

“You, shhhh,” David says. 

“Are you just jealous of my ...” Patrick bobbles his head as does the calculation. “...Thirty-three-point word? Size doesn’t matter in Scrabble, David.” 

“I _know that_ , I’ve _played before_ ,” David snaps. “I’m not some...fucking college student diddling around with Bananagrams!” 

“Diddling?” Patrick repeats, his tiny little silk-worm eyebrows inching upwards. 

“Tiny words are _cheap_ ,” David reiterates. “It’s the _coward’s_ way of winning!” 

“But I’m still winning, though.” 

“Well, sure, if you like _selling your soul_ to do so, go right ahead. I bet-” And here David leans both elbows onto the table, scattering the tiles they’ve already played and ignoring Mutt and Stevie’s noises of complaint, “I bet you’re the kind of person who plays Risk and _always_ just goes for Australia. Just - goes for it and stays there!” 

“So?” Patrick shrugs, entirely unflapped. “So what if I do? I _also_ tend to win at Risk, just like I tend to win at Uno.” 

David stands up abruptly, nearly flipping the tiny table. “You know what? I don’t need to take this. I’m going to bed. You all have fun.” 

“No, no, I’ll go,” Patrick announces, and he stands too, and it feels like some kind of power move - even more so because Patrick doesn’t even seem _bothered_ . Like, sure, he’s a little pink in the cheeks, but David’s fairly sure his own nostrils are fully flared, which is just _unfair_. “Thanks for a, uh, well. I’ll thank Alexis, I guess.” 

David gapes at the mayor’s stupid polyster button-down back as he passes between the head-banging townies, says something to Alexis, and slips out the door.

“He couldn’t even let _me_ be the one to walk away,” David says, furious. 

“David,” Alexis calls, bobbing towards him. “What did you _say_ to that poor button? He looked like he was going to cry!” 

“Then go after him.” David doesn’t believe it for a second; Patrick’s a politician and is clearly skilled at manipulation. “Go - comfort him and he’ll fall on your bosom in gratitude.” 

“Ew! And no, honestly...” Alexis grabs his wrist and glances behind him, where Twyla and Mutt are gathering their things in preparation for leaving. “Honestly, I’m _kind_ of getting more vibes from Mutt?” 

“Good.” David looks around and nabs Stevie’s half-finished drink; he assists her in all-the-way finishing it in one gulp. 

“Stevie, what _happened_?” Alexis demands, delighted. 

“Oh, your brother met someone who’s just as pedantic and anal as he is, and he can’t take it.” 

“Patrick and I are _nothing_ alike. Did you _hear_ the way he kept _mocking_ me with that whole ‘if there aren’t rules what’s the point thing’? So childish.” 

“Oh,” Stevie says, blinking up at him, “you’re right. Latching onto something irrelevant and driving it into the ground is _nothing_ like you.” 

“And he’s lucky I ended the game,” David goes on, “or I might’ve killed him.” 

Alexis cringes. “David, regicide is _not_ a good look for you. I’ve dated a few CIA operatives who could pull it off, but-”

“Was he this awful on the campaign trail?” David asks Stevie. “Like, did he threaten people into voting for him, or bankroll his campaign with blood money?” 

“He’s really not that bad,” Stevie shrugs, and David frowns; that’s about as ringing an endorsement as he’s ever heard her give. “I actually think you two could-” 

“Okay, I really am going to bed now, though. So.” He looks around at the dribbles of beer on every surface, at the randoms perched on the end of Alexis’s bed and getting dangerously close to his own. “Ugh. Just keep it down, okay? I’m going to need to read, like, _fifty_ pages of my book before I’ll be able to sleep, after that whole--” He waves at the door Patrick had exited through. “That whole nonsense.” 

**Six**

“This could be really good for me,” David had said, neck-deep in a panic attack and considering attending a yoga class for the first time since he’d followed Emmy Rossum to an ill-fated retreat in Andalusia, so of course when he shows up at Mutt’s barn, he ends up paired with the mayor.

“David! Hi. Good to - welcome,” Patrick blurts out, when Twyla guides David over. 

David bears his teeth in an approximation of a smile, because he can’t tear into the mayor in front of Jocelyn without expecting it to be all over town. Instead, he stands as far away as he can from Patrick without getting a finger in the eye courtesy of one of the other eagerly-stretching attendees. 

David likes the breathing, and the quiet; Twyla’s good at this, definitely better than she is at games. He even likes the part where he has to put his hands on Patrick’s lower back, because he can just feel the smooth, pale skin under his palms and look at the stretch of Patrick’s shorts over his ass and pretend he’s someone hot and pleasant and not a total dick. That leads David to wondering whether someone with Patrick’s arms and shoulders - _not_ Patrick, but someone similarly equipped - could give David a blowjob while in downward facing dog, if David laid underneath - It’s a thought exercise which isn’t calming David down but is definitely making him feel less panicked. 

Towards the end of the practice, Twyla calls for one person in each pair to get into child’s pose to support the other partner. Patrick meets David’s raised eyebrow and nods. “Yeah, I’ll do it.” 

David drapes backwards over him carefully, supporting himself on his hands until their shoulders are aligned, their backs pressed together from nape to tail. 

“You can relax,” Patrick says underneath him, voice muffled, and David wants to snark back, but it _does_ feel really good, the contact and warmth and solidity of Patrick under him, and so he lets his head fall alongside Patrick’s, his arms flopping out to either side in total release. 

A shuddering breath escapes him and he squeezes his eyes shut in mortification. 

Twyla keeps them there for ages, long enough for their breathing to sync up, long enough for David to start to lose feeling in his butt where it’s pressed against Patrick’s. Long enough, apparently, for Patrick to decide to fill the silence. 

“David,” he whispers, and David ignores him. “I wanted - I wanted to apologize. For my behavior at game night. I thought it was all in good fun, which is not an excuse, but-” His head stirs restlessly next to David, his hair tickling David’s ear. “Anyway. I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I-”

“Hush, Patrick, I’m relaxing,” David slurs. 

He feels Patrick’s chuckle in his whole body. “Sorry.” There’s a long pause, and David feels himself being dragged further under; he hasn’t slept in days. “I did find the Uno rule book at the Elmdale library, though, and-”

“Shhh, I’m sleeping,” David murmurs.

“Would you _both shut up_?” Alexis hisses from the next mat over. 

  
  
  


**Seven**

David would not have thought that the sight of Patrick Brewer at 6:30AM would make him feel better about the early hour and the dearth of coffee, but Patrick’s dressed in a hideous camo onesie and looking decidedly disgruntled and all of that _does_ actually make David feel less like taking a short walk into the nearest available bog. 

“What are _you_ doing here?” he demands as he unfolds himself from Stevie’s tiny car. 

“Oh, hi, David,” Patrick says distractedly. “Ronnie, can I have my gun back?” 

“Just double-checking,” Ronnie calls as she scrutinizes a very large gun. 

Patrick sighs and turns to David and Stevie. “She does this every year.” 

“Can’t have the mayor shooting himself in the foot!” Ronnie yells and cackles to herself. 

“You’re _flustered_ ,” David says in awe. “She _flusters_ you.”

“I’m not _flustered_ ,” Patrick protests, but his face is a little scrunched and he crosses his arms and David has to press his lips together in delight. “I just hoped this would have stopped by now.” 

“She does it to the bats when they play baseball,” Stevie informs David helpfully. “Something about not wanting him to hit himself in the face?” 

“Alright, I’m glad that my humiliation is so amusing to you,” Patrick grumbles. “David, do you need to borrow some camo?” 

David laughs. “Oh, no, thank you.” 

“Actually, unless you have some in that little bag there, you _do_ need camo,” Stevie says. 

David frowns down at her. “Okay, and you couldn’t have mentioned this _yesterday_ when I was _packing_ said bag?” 

“Oh, so you have some camo in your extensive wardrobe then?” she asks, and oh no, she and Patrick both have the same shit-eating innocent expression; how did he get stuck on a bird-killing trip with the only two people in town who do sarcasm as well as he does? Three, if he counts Ronnie. 

He grits his teeth and turns his gaze slowly to Patrick. “I would... appreciate if I could borrow some... delightful rustic clothing for the day.” 

“Well, we’re fresh out of the delightful ones, but I’ll see what I’ve got,” Patrick says, and _winks_. 

“Okay, so are Roland and Bob bringing the turkeys?” David asks Stevie, glancing around for the rest of their hunting party. 

“Bringing...the turkeys?” Stevie repeats slowly. 

“Yeah.” For once, David isn’t the least experienced person in the room. Or in the forest, in this case. “Like, at Elton’s, he’d usually have, like, four guys carry the quail or whatever in these wicker baskets until we got to the hunting area?”

“Right,” Stevie says. “Um, you know, that’s a great question. Why don’t we - why don’t I ask Ronnie and Patrick?”

“Oh, you don’t-” David tries to cut her off, because he’s suddenly feeling much less confident. 

“Ronnie! Patrick!” Stevie hails them both over; they come bearing two of the large guns and one very ugly pantsuit, respectively. “David was wondering who’s bringing the turkeys.” 

They all blink at him, so he says carefully, “Um. Like. Did Roland pick them up last night, or is the turkey farmer man bringing them here himself, or-”

There’s a beat of silence, and then all three of them are laughing. 

“ _Did Roland pick them up_ ,” Ronnie wheezes, leaning on both guns like ski poles. 

“Okay,” David huffs. 

“Hey Ronnie,” Patrick chuckles, “maybe you should check _David’s_ gun.”

Ronnie waves a hand. “Nah, even he can manage not to fuck this up.” She hands David one of the guns, smacks the other into Patrick’s open palm with a glare, and then walks away, still chortling. 

“I hate you both,” David sniffs. Hoisting the gun over his shoulder by its little purse strap, he stalks off to find a truck cab to nap in until this ridiculous endeavor kicks off. 

**Eight**

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” David demands; he can hear their guests at the door to room 6 and he needs to maintain his focus, needs to get back over to the table full of duplicitous Allez Vous products in time for his first line in this pantomime. He does not have time for surprise visits from the mayor. 

Patrick seems undeterred by David’s insistence on holding this conversation through a tiny crack in the door. His pleasant smile is as nauseatingly blinding as the actual sunlight from outside. “Hi David, lovely to see you as always. Ray asked me to stop in at your luncheon.”

“Okay, but Ray wasn’t invited to our luncheon,” which is almost definitely a rude thing to say, but Jocelyn’s laughing in the next room and his mom is going to be escorting the ladies in soon. 

“Well, he’s got a nose for business ventures, and he heard from Gwen that you and your mom were getting into the Allez Vous game, and he’s busy all day but I’m not, so he asked me to come as his representative.” 

David’s very unclear on how _that_ power dynamic works, and he’s also faintly nervous that Patrick, as a government official, might disapprove of the charlatan model that underlies the entire Allez Vous enterprise, but they’re out of time. “Okay, okay, just - sit in the corner and try not to get in the way.” 

Patrick takes _sit in the corner_ to mean _sit at the end of Alexis’s bed_ , where he’s right in the front row of the little crowd, and David bares his teeth at him. Behind Patrick, Stevie snorts into her glass of champagne. 

When David works the audience with specially-tailored suggestions for each of them, he says loudly, “And you, Mr. Mayor! Maybe you’d consider the self-tanning lotion I’m currently wearing. If you start now, you could achieve a healthy skin tone by Christmas.” 

Ronnie, a few seats away, laughs out loud. Patrick blushes - no lotion needed for _that_ pigmentation - but smiles gamely, raising his glass to David’s jest. Well, Patrick probably thought it was a jest; David’s only partially joking. 

And at the end of the afternoon, as their guests file out and as David moves to comfort his mother in their mutual shame, Patrick stands from the bed and offers a slip of paper. 

“This is from Ray,” he explains, as David gingerly takes the check, which is decorated with tiny little watermarks of a waving Ray. “He asked me to bring him back some of the nail cream.” 

David cringes. “Mmkay, this feels like pity money, though.” 

“It’s not, I promise,” Patrick chuckles. “Ray really likes to get in on the ground floor on new businesses. The first time Allez Vous hit this town, he bought from everyone. As his sometimes-financial advisor, I tried to deter him, but.” He shrugs, and he actually looks _fond_ , talking about Ray. “And he swears by the nail cream.” 

David has seen Ray’s nails, actually, when they’d eaten dinner with him and Patrick, and if this is what Ray uses to achieve that healthy shine, maybe he needs to reconsider his opinion of Allez Vous’s products. 

  
  
  


**Nine**

David’s out for a walk to escape the chaos that is the motel right now, with Stevie’s relatives visiting, when he sees a few familiar faces coming out of the church on the other side of the road. 

“Oh my g -- Dad? Ew, is he okay?” he calls. 

Patrick glances up from where he’s escorting Johnny down the steps, one hand on his elbow, as David looks both ways for traffic he can be fairly sure isn’t coming and then trots across the street. “He’s fine, just a little - just a little worked up,” Patrick says quietly. Johnny does look a little worse for wear, sweaty and a little gray in the cheeks. “I think Carl’s funeral hit a little close to home.” 

“Who’s Carl?” David asks. 

Patrick helps Johnny onto a nearby bench; Ray’s face beams unconcernedly up at them from next to his left arm. “Bob’s brother.” 

“And Bob is-”

“I’m alright,” Johnny says abruptly, speaking for the first time. “I just need a minute. It was just - very warm in there. And I kept picturing that ceiling fan - we’re all on the ceiling fan, in this town...”

David grimaces. “Oh god.” 

“Yeah, I probably should’ve offered to do the eulogy, but Bob was so set on having Mr. Rose do it.” Patrick shakes his head regretfully. 

“Alright, well, um- I guess I could - take him back to the motel? Though things are bit crazy there, with the-”

“Stevie’s cousin’s family, right?” Patrick nods. “They’re always a hoot, so to speak. Keeps things interesting. We’ve gotten six noise complaints already.” He tugs up his black dress pants and squats to Johnny’s level. “How are you feeling, Mr. Rose?” 

“Better, better.” He glances up at David. “I should get back in there before all the egg salad sandwiches are gone.” 

“Oh, he’s fine,” David says. 

  
  


**Ten**

“So here’s a fun question,” David says loudly, because he’s getting some _very_ weird vibes between Alexis and Ted, and Alexis and Mutt, and Mutt and Twyla, and Mutt and Ted, and he hasn’t had enough wine yet to not care about that. “Can anyone recommend a good dry cleaner? The motel sink is too small for my more delicate pieces.”

He regrets it the moment he’s asked, looking around at Ted and Patrick’s starched collared shirts, Twyla’s plasticky blouse, Mutt’s holey t-shirt. He doesn’t even glance at Stevie’s outfit; he knows better than to expect helpful advice from her.

“Actually, I do know a place, in Elmdale,” Patrick says from the other side of the table, where he’s wedged in three-to-a-side with Mutt and Twyla. “Right next to the, uh, the cobbler.” 

“Ooh, a _cobbler_ ,” David hums, “that’s good to know. I have these shoes I bought in Hanoi, and I’m afraid they’re developing a hole at the toe-”

“Mm, I know just the place you mean,” Stevie says around a mouthful of lasagna, pointing her fork at Patrick and slopping some of her salad onto David’s plate. “Between the cobbler and the candlestick maker.” 

“The candlestick maker?” David repeats slowly.

“Oh yeah, I know the lady who runs that place,” Mutt cuts in. “Great lady. Very old school. She takes her clothes down to the river and she has this one rock-” 

“ _Okay,_ ” David mutters, as Stevie and Patrick start laughing. 

“Is it a special rock?” Twyla asks, glancing between them. “I don’t get it.” 

“No, Twyla, they were just making fun of David,” Alexis stage-whispers. 

“I do know a place, though,” Patrick says, unchastened but earnest, once things have calmed down a bit. “Ray designs their advertisements and signs so we get a discounted rate. I’m sure they’d extend it to you too, if I asked.” 

_Discounts_ on _dry cleaning_ rarely translate to high quality, and David is hoping to reduce the required interactions he has with this annoying person in the future. “Thanks, but - I’ll just Google it.” 

Dinner doesn’t get better from there. All the shit no one wants to talk about gets scratched out into the open, so that everyone’s talking about everyone else’s relationships. Patrick’s there alone, so he’s just an incessant, annoying buzz adding on to the sniping and the griping and the passive aggression. 

“He’s like a _gnat_ ,” he’s still complaining as he and Stevie walk back to the motel after they’ve escaped dinner. Stevie’s struggling to keep up with him because he’s rage-striding. 

“Yeah, do you mind if we stop talking about Patrick if we’re still going to sleep together? ‘Cause right now it kind of feels like you’d rather be boning _him_.” 

“Ew.” David feels his lips pucker like he’s bitten a lemon. “As if. I just find him unnecessarily prickly and nosy and cruel.” 

“I’m pretty sure no one has ever found Patrick to be _any_ of those things, so - maybe it’s just you,” Stevie tells him, with that impressively blank face that really gets under David’s skin because he wishes he could do that, deliver a burn that powerful and then pretend like it’s nothing. Ugh. He really shouldn’t sleep with her again, but he really wants to and he’s definitely going to.

  
  
  


**Eleven**

“Drinking to forget?”

Just the sound of Patrick’s voice should be enough to get David up and fighting. Indeed, when he looks up from the drink he’s swirling, there’s a tightness around Patrick’s features, like he too is primed to throw a few punches, or at least braced for the punches he expects David to throw. 

And in a past life, David would’ve paid money to get people to see him as that intimidating. To be feared rather than loved, not that loved had ever been a choice. To be feared rather than forgotten, maybe. But today?

Today he’s tired. 

A teenager has humiliated him and made him aware that he’s endangering the one true, good friendship he has - the one true, good friendship he’s _ever_ had. Of course it’s not just that. He’s tired of that thing Stevie had said about _maybe it’s just you_ who can’t stand Patrick running through his head, another confirmation that he’s fucked up, that he flails toxicity around him. He’s been tired since Stevie said that sleeping with him was embarrassing for her. He’s tired of working so hard for a friendship that, ultimately, is probably just a stopgap until they leave this town. He’s been tired since they got to this town. He’s been tired for longer than he cares to remember. 

So tonight, he just can’t make it happen. Tonight, the fight goes out of him. 

He sends a weak smile down the cafe counter towards where Patrick is leaning, tapping his wallet, clearly waiting for his takeout. “I wish I could forget the taste of this cocktail Twyla made.” 

Patrick winces. “Ooh, yeah. I think usually people are pretty desperate when they come to her for drinks, so they’re not usually that particular.” 

“Well,” David chuckles darkly. “Pretty desperate is a nice way of putting it.” 

“That good of a day, huh?”

“Mm.” David brings the glass to his lips before he remembers. He sniffs at it in distaste and sets it back down. Not even the sweet oblivion of a blackout is worth drinking this stuff. “I mentored a young soul today.” 

Patrick blinks for a moment, then chuckles, leaning forward on both arms. “Is that so?”

“Mhm. Jocelyn asked me to speak to one of her students, who’s been having a hard time, and you know, I think I really got through to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if what I told him, like, changes his life irrevocably. Like he’ll probably call me up years from now and just be like, hey, man, thank you for that, it was, like, _so_ impactful.” 

“I can see it,” Patrick nods solemnly. “Sounds realistic. And hey, since this seems to be so in your wheelhouse, there’s a mentorship program in Elm Glen-” 

“Umm, unfortunately, I don’t have a car.” 

“That’s okay, we could carpool.” 

David rolls his eyes at Patrick’s cheeky grin. “While I recognize your offer to act as my chauffeur, I think it’s really only fair that I give other people a chance? Because to be a mentor is something just so- so profound, so _defining_ , and I’ve had my chance, you know? There must be others in the area just _itching_ for their chance to shepherd a scared, confused, hormonal little terror into the light.” 

“Well, it’s a mentorship program, not a cult, but okay, David.” Patrick stands up straight again as Twyla comes out with a couple of containers in a bag. 

For a split second, in the sharp recognition that he’s about to be alone again, at least until Stevie shows up for their break up, David thinks about telling Patrick just how shitty Connor made him feel, and how fucking stupid he feels for letting a teenager get to him, and how it’s made him recognize that he’s really fragile, that everything in his life is really fragile, that he feels like he could just fall and keep falling, nothing to catch him. But he blinks, and the moment passes. He’s not in a fighting mood, but they’re not _friends_.

“Here’s a question,” he says instead. Patrick turns to him, waiting patiently. “If you were going to - if you had to - to end a relationship, but still be friends after-” He looks up, hoping Patrick will catch the threads he’s struggling with, but Patrick’s still just waiting. “I admittedly don’t have that much experience being the person who ends things? Like, break-ups, yes, I’m an expert, but not from this - not as the-”

Patrick comes around the corner of the counter so that he can stand next to David, so that he can put a hand on his shoulder like an old man about to impart hard-earned knowledge. _You’re younger than me_ , David wants to say petulantly, but Patrick looks so wise and steady, even through David’s alcohol buzz, and he wants Patrick to say something that will save him. He doesn’t deserve it, from Patrick, but somehow he knows Patrick will extend it to him anyway; it makes him feel he deserves it even less. 

“Just try to be kind about it,” Patrick advises. “Be...present. Be honest, but not in a harsh way.” 

David swallows around a tightness in his throat; he’s probably allergic to something in that terrifying cocktail. 

“It’s what I would want,” Patrick admits. “It’s what I should’ve offered to people in the past.” 

David opens his mouth to ask for more on _that_ , but then Stevie’s there, taking David’s drink, and Patrick squeezes David’s shoulder and leaves. 

  
  


**Twelve**

The chocolate ganache torte is delicious, worth every drop of the tube of moisturizer he’s promised Alexis for going to pick it up, worth even the whole awkward thing in the motel lobby with Stevie earlier. David’s coming dangerously close to performing fellatio on his plastic fork, just to make sure he doesn’t miss a single crumb. 

“This is a pretty nice thing you did, David.” 

He smiles around the fork’s blunt tines at Patrick, who’s looking surprisingly dapper in a navy jacket and tie. “Thanks.” 

“Your mom looks really pleased.”

She does; his parents are waltzing on a concrete floor in a halfway-refurbished barn and his mother looks pleased. It’s damn near a miracle. 

“She’s had a lot of wine,” he tells Patrick. 

“Uh-huh.” 

David realizes he’s started to chew on the fork; he hopes Patrick hasn’t noticed. He slips his empty plate onto the table behind him. “So. Are you required to attend all town functions?”

“I am,” Patrick says seriously, “but not because I’m mayor. All residents of Schitt’s Creek have to attend all events that happen within town limits.”

“Oh god. I’m fairly sure you’re kidding, but I would _not_ put it past this place.”

Patrick shrugs. “It helps cut down on childhood birthday party trauma.”

“Mm. I wouldn’t know about that. My parents paid for people to attend my birthday parties.” He’s mostly kidding. 

The song changes, and Patrick turns to him, all big eyes and tight shoulders and hands hiding in his pant pockets. “How about a dance?”

“Oh!” David swallows; the people on the dance floor are standing _very_ close to each other. “Are you - are you allowed? Is the mayor allowed to dance?”

Patrick laughs, a surprised, pleased little rumble of a chuckle. “I think a dance between friends is okay. No one here will rat me out.” 

“Don’t say _rat_ too loudly, this barn is probably full of them,” David says, but he takes the hand Patrick offers, recognizing it for the truce and gesture that it is. The texture of Patrick’s palm is basically the opposite of the texture of the ganache, and David still likes it, still wants to explore it with his tongue like he’d done the fork. Patrick’s hand is hot and dry and it’s tugging David in, pulling him to Patrick’s chest. It’s a slow song, sure, but this seems - very close. “So.” Patrick’s shoulders are just as sturdy to touch as they are pleasant to look at. “We’re friends, then?”

Patrick blinks up at him. “I’d like to think so.”

“Hmm.” David slides his hand so it’s just tucked under Patrick’s jacket collar. “Friends with the mayor. Does that get me any, like, perks, or free swag, or-”

“You know I barely have any more power than Bob,” Patrick informs him. 

“Um, I did not know that, but. Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’ve heard Bob is _very_ influential.” 

"Oh really?” Patrick’s this great height, where David can look over his head to watch his sister and Ted, his parents, Stevie and Twyla, but can also study the little hints of curls in his hair without getting caught. “Have you been talking to Ray again?” 

“Ronnie,” he corrects, and he doesn’t miss the involuntary clench of Patrick’s fingers against his lower back. “My _friend_.” 

“Wow. So you’re friends with _Ronnie_ but you’re not sure about me.” Patrick shakes his head. “I see how it is.”

“Okay, it’s just, I’ve made more friends lately than I know how to handle?” David admits, because he’s joking but it also makes his skin itch, knowing he’s building relationships that he’ll have to dump the second the opportunity comes to leave this town. He’s usually on the other side of that equation. “So. I might have to put that on hold until I have more availability?” 

“I understand,” Patrick says, far too softly. “But hey, let me know when you’ve got an opening for me. Not an _opening_ , oh god. That’s-” He’s already beet red, hanging his head as David laughs at him. “That’s not what I-”

“Mr. _Mayor_ ,” David scolds, with a faux-scandalized gasp, and Patrick’s fingers clench on his back again. 

**Thirteen**

Ray’s door is unlocked, because in this podunk town people trust each other, which has really been David’s downfall, too. Someday they’ll all face a string of grisly murders and he won’t even be here to say _told you so_. He’ll be alive, safe off somewhere, probably New York - alone, but alive. 

“David,” Patrick says, standing up so quickly he bumps the table. 

“I need to talk to my dad,” David says tightly, avoiding looking at anyone. 

“Come join us!” Ray calls, waving a bowl of corn in David’s direction. 

“ _Dad_ ,” he growls. 

They take their tete-a-tete to the kitchen, which isn’t that helpful, since Ray’s dining room is only separated from his kitchen by an island that’s currently covered in measuring cups and wooden spoons and oven mitts. He can feel four pairs of eyes watching them, though Ray has helpfully restarted the conversation with the prospective buyer, talking loudly. 

“Why don’t you come eat with us,” his father offers. “Patrick made these herbed rolls that remind me of the breakfast we had at that little inn in Provence, and Andy - well, Andy and Ray get along, so that’s good. We should have the sale signed by dessert.” 

David spares a wistful thought for the almost-viennetta he’d eaten here months ago, but he’s not here for dessert. He can have a world-class viennetta every day once he’s back in New York. “Yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You gave me this town as a gift, so I feel like I’m owed a little bit more. Fifty percent for me, fifty percent for you.”

Johnny opens his mouth, probably with an intention to constructively criticize David’s bargaining technique, but then he shuts it again, smiling in that slightly condescending way they all share. “Well, that’s not going to happen. But if you’ll join us, and help your mother and I lock this down, we could talk about, oh, thirty percent.” 

“ _Thirty_ percent?” David demands. Ray’s voice seems to get louder in response; over his dad’s shoulder, he can see his mother cringing at a joke the prospective buyer has told, and Patrick’s eyes keep flicking from the conversation at the table to David and Johnny in the kitchen. “If I’m going to be in New York, _by myself_ , I’m going to need more money.” 

“We’ll talk later,” Johnny says, already rounding the island to rejoin the merry party. David wants to wring his neck. “Come have some of the deviled eggs-”

“I don’t want fucking deviled eggs!” David snaps. Someone - Ray, he thinks - squeaks. He grinds his teeth and glances over at them. Patrick’s frowning, and David rolls his eyes. “Sorry,” he mutters. 

He storms out without saying goodbye - not to Patrick, or Ray, or his parents, or fucking Andy. They can mail him the check.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the purposes of this fic, they're in rooms 6 and 7, but we all agree it changes during the show smh daniel


	2. Season 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much gratitude to Januarium for coding all the texts and fixing the dashes! Cannot say what a great gift to me that is. And thank you to foxtails for woodworking advice and fact-checking!

**One**

There’s a petty little part of David that thrills when a car starts trundling down the rocky driveway to the farmhouse where he’s been unceremoniously dumped by Roland’s disaster of a truck. Okay, it’s a petty _big_ part of David. His phone died not long after Roland’s truck did, so he hasn’t been able to get in touch with anyone to let them know of his predicament, which means they’d only be here, now, to pick him up if they realized he was missing all on their own and have been actively looking for him. It’s a pathetic thing to be excited about, that his family missed him enough to put in the leg work to find him within 36 hours. He’d expected 48, at least.

So he can’t be blamed for the confusion and disappointment when it’s the mayor who climbs out of the car. “Oh,” he says, frowning at the empty seats in Patrick’s Toyota. “You’re not my family.”

“Uh, no.” Patrick rubs his hands on his jeans and stands at the bottom of the porch steps, looking up at David with a little squint against the sun. “I think they were going to, uh, to check for you on the other side of the county. I just happened to find you first.”

David bites his lip and wonders how pathetic it would be to choose to stay with Aaron and Miriam and the woman who doesn’t like him and the six kids whose names he hasn’t learned yet. Maybe he can bribe Patrick to pretend he didn’t find David.

“Are you ready to go?” Patrick asks. “We can make it back before dark if we leave right away.”

It takes excessive arranging and rearranging to get all of David’s bags to fit in the back seat and trunk of Patrick’s car, but they (okay, just Patrick, really) manage it. They wave to the family assembled on the porch and get on the road. When they pass Roland’s truck, David slips down in his seat a little, like the truck will see him and judge him as hard as he’s judging himself.

“You know, a ride with the mayor is kind of a big deal,” he says hesitantly, ten silent minutes into the drive. Patrick’s been white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole time, even though the roads are broad and empty. “You could auction it off for, like, funding to actually get the water fountain in the park to dispense water.”

“Uh-huh.”

David can’t fathom why Patrick doesn’t want to talk right now. He _always_ wants to talk; it’s why he and Ray are kind of perfect for each other. Doesn’t he want to know how David _is?_ Doesn’t he want to know how he’s _survived_ the last day and a half, _alone?_

“Do you think we could stop for dinner?” he tries again. “Um, I only had a salad for lunch and it was all local and seasonal and wonderful but I would not turn my nose up at a cheeseburger right now.” Patrick flicks a glance in the rearview mirror, even though there’s no one there. David juts his jaw out and exhales through his nose. “My treat!” he offers brightly. “I can do that again, now. Buy things for people. With the money from the sale —"

“They didn’t sell the town, David,” Patrick says flatly.

 _“What?”_ David shrieks, which is of course the moment that the car coughs and jolts and grinds to a stop, smoke sputtering from the hood. They both jerk forward in their seats, and David throws out an arm, whether to steady Patrick or himself he’s unsure.

“Are you okay?” Patrick asks, and David wants to say _finally,_ wants to unload every dark, pathetic thought he’s had since Stevie had turned him down, wants to make a joke about crying to Patsi Cline as he drove through the night, but that’s not what Patrick means.

“Um. I think so.” He withdraws his hand from Patrick’s arm, which he realizes he’s been clutching, and clears his throat. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t steal _your_ car the other night. I would’ve made it even further before breaking down and then _no one_ would’ve found me.”

Patrick stabs the button to release his seat belt. “Too soon, David.”

David rears his head back. “Too _soon?_ I’m sorry, which one of us has just been through a _traumatic experience?”_

Patrick’s climbing out of the car and David almost thinks he won’t answer, almost thinks the silent treatment is still in effect, but then Patrick leans back in, his arms spread taut between the open door and the roof, his eyes intense on David. “David, some people were worried about you. I guess I’m just not ready to make jokes about it yet.”

“Oh,” David says helplessly. “I —"

“I’m going to call Bob.”

David stares at the inside of the driver-side door for a full minute after Patrick’s closed it. Patrick had been worried about him? Maybe he meant Stevie; maybe Stevie had been worried. Twyla had probably been worried, poor thing. He could even see Ray sponsoring a picture on a side of a milk carton, or something.

Patrick had probably just been worried about the optics of it: one of the most famous residents of his town running away and getting axe murdered in deep, deep rural Ontario. That’s probably why he’s here at all.

Except Patrick had said they were friends, or could be; except Patrick is cut from the same, homespun cloth as Twyla; except people around here seem to feel big things about people they barely know, a habit David had learned himself out of long ago. He thought he had, anyway.

So now he feels guilty for joking about it, and he feels angry at Patrick for making him feel guilty, because this _has_ been traumatic, and his feelings _are_ valid, and if he needs to joke about them to cope, who the fuck is Patrick to tell him not to?

A sharp rap on his window gives him approximately his third heart attack of the last few days. It’s Patrick, of course. “Might want to move away from the car in case it blows up.”

“Is that likely?” David demands, scrambling out onto the grassy side of the road.

“I don’t know, David, but smoke’s generally not a good sign.”

“Got that, thanks,” he says drily. “Ooh, wait, my bags!”

Patrick heaves a sigh with dramatic fervor to rival television’s Moira Rose, but he helps David unload the car.

**Two**

He’s laying out the ingredients on the counter, trying to keep them organized and cute the way people set it up for cooking videos he watches and never actually replicates, when Ray’s front door opens.

His mother, helpfully supervising his preparations from a safe distance, twirls to face the newcomer, whom David can’t see from where he’s standing. “Oh, Patrick! Have you come to aid us in our culinary caper?”

“Oh my god,” David mutters, abandoning his organizational efforts to save Patrick. “Mom, Patrick lives here, he’s not here to help us. We’re supposed to do this on our own, remember?”

Patrick finally sidles into view, setting a briefcase down against the doorframe to the living room. “Ah, yeah, Ray did mention you’d be here. I can help, though, if you need — I have an hour before my next meeting.”

“That’s okay, thank you,” David replies with a tight smile. “Mom, do you — do you want to turn on the stove?” He can’t forcibly remove Patrick from the room, but if he distracts his mother he can more easily persuade Patrick out of here.

“Yes? Yes,” Moira nods determinedly and daintily pushes up her sleeves as she stalks away.

David spares a moment to worry whether she _knows_ how to turn on the stove before saying quietly to Patrick, “Thank you for offering, but we’re really just going to — get in and out, you don’t have to —"

“I don’t mind,” Patrick assures him. “I’m happy to help.”

“It’s —” David rolls his eyes. “You’ve done enough.”

Patrick nods slowly. “You can’t keep thanking me for picking you up at the farm forever.”

“That’s not — that’s not what this is,” David says, though now he’s not so sure. Things have been ... tense, and formal, between them since his return. The same with Stevie, though he at least doesn’t have to ask _Patrick_ for towels and soap and favors every day. It’s a different kind of tense than it had been when he’d first known and disliked Patrick. It’s a kind of tense that cuts deeper.

“Okay,” Patrick says, sounding unconvinced. “I’ll just — be upstairs, then. In case you need to know where the fire extinguisher is, or something.”

“Thanks so much!” David calls after him as he retreats with his briefcase. “We won’t be needing that. Though, um, maybe it’s more helpful to tell us that now rather than waiting til we need it?”

Patrick doesn’t answer.

A stressful hour and a half later, he leaves a note on Ray’s thoroughly cleaned kitchen counter: **_Ray and Patrick — thanks for letting us borrow your kitchen. I am not confident the finished enchiladas are fit for human consumption, so we will only be feeding them to my family and not leaving you any, sorry. Really, it’s for the best. We owe you a bottle of wine. Thanks again. —D_**

**Three**

“Are, uh, are you okay?”

David shades his eyes with the magazine he’d taken to reading after running out of things to do on his phone. “Yes,” he replies to Patrick, hoping he doesn’t come off as too passive-aggressive. He’s not really sure which one of them is mad at the other, but he’s prepared to be as reactionarily mad as needed.

“Okay, it’s just —" Patrick approaches the half-finished chest. “You’re sitting out here, in the sun, alone, next to what appears to be a coffin for a small child?”

“Oh my god, no,” David gasps, and if he thinks about that morbid fucking image every time he uses this chest, he will never forgive Patrick. Maybe _he’s_ the one who’s mad at _Patrick?_ He wishes he could ask, just to clarify. “It’s a cedar chest. For my knits.”

“Ah! I didn’t know you knitted.”

David can’t help the way his face reacts. How can one conversation contain so many misunderstandings? “I don’t. It’s for my sweaters and things. That someone else knitted. Out of wool that the moths were starting to enjoy? Cedar keeps out the moths.”

“Yeah, no, I got there a couple minutes ago,” Patrick says with a ghost of a smile. “So, what, are you waiting for the wood to grow into the right shape, or —"

Mutt’s return from using the bathroom in David and Alexis’s room saves David from this conversation and Patrick from what would probably have been a quick death at David’s frustrated hands. “Oh, hey, Patrick.”

“Mutt! You’re the, uh, the woodworker here, then.”

“Can’t let Jake have all the fun,” Mutt says, and they both laugh, which David doesn’t understand.

“The sanding looks great,” Patrick comments, sliding a hand reverently over one stretch of wood. David has seen first Mutt, then his dad when he wandered by, then a complete stranger out for a walk, and now Patrick do this same gesture. There’s clearly some deep affection for acquiring splinters that David, being sound of mind, cannot understand. “Did you use a fine grit?”

“220,” Mutt nods.

“And what kind of saw are you using?” Patrick asks, squatting a little to peer at one of the intersections of boards Mutt has built.

“Just a handsaw. Thought a Mitre saw would be overkill.”

“Of course, of course.” Patrick crosses his arms, one hand rising to brush over his chin in apparent contemplation. David has no idea what’s happening but he’s pretty sure at least one of them is posturing; is this what people do when they try to prove their masculinity? “And I’m guessing you’re using wood glue, too? Because screws —"

“Would work their way out over time, yeah.” Mutt gestures with a bottle he’d found in the box David had dragged out of the motel’s shed. “Though I had to buy some new. The stuff Stevie had was older than I am.”

“Um, I will need to see a receipt for that, before I can reimburse you!” David calls. “But thanks.”

Patrick glances at him with a little grin, then announces, “Well, I’ll leave you two to it. I was just passing by and wanted to check that David wasn’t burying a mini horse or something.”

“That’s uncalled for,” David mutters.

**Four**

After the most unfortunate shopping trip David has ever been on, and that’s really saying a lot, he’s prepared to just get in Roland’s unfortunate truck and forget this unfortunate day ever happened. But then Roland suggests they get ice cream, which is weird but not something David can easily turn down. So now they’re walking down Elmdale’s main street, David nursing the best scoop of pistachio he’s had in over a year and Roland doing obscene things to a fudge-dipped cone and still carrying a bag full of his unfortunate purchases.

“So what do you know about this _Patrick_ guy?” Roland says eventually, breaking off his previous monologue about the different kinds of equipment used for plumbing.

David catches a drip — this is _free_ food, _good_ free food, and not a drop will be wasted — and frowns. “Um. Not much?””

“I mean, you two hang out, right?”

“Not really.”

“But you’re both guys of about the same age, you must ... kick it together, sometimes?”

David is very unclear on where this is going and suddenly finds himself actually hoping the Meryl Streep roleplay is not something Roland had come up with on the spot just to get them to this exact, strange conversation. “To be fair, your son is also a ‘guy of about the same age’ but he and I don’t _hang out,_ with the exception of one awkward dinner party, and one other time that was more about me needing his help, so.”

“Right.” Roland nods. The fudge coating is starting to slip off his ice cream, and David wonders what could be so thoroughly distracting as to keep someone from properly attending to that tragedy waiting to happen. “So you don’t know if he’s, and this is really just spitballing, but if he’s trying to sabotage the town, or ruin my legacy, or anything?”

“Um —" He shakes his head, trying to catch up. “Not that I — not that I’ve heard?”

“Good. That’s good.” Roland manages a forced smile and then glances away.

David nearly trips over a crack in the sidewalk as a thought strikes him. He’s been wondering why his parents spend so much time with Roland and Jocelyn, when they really don’t need to, when they’d be more likely to get favors from Patrick or Ronnie or Ray, when they spend so much time complaining about the Schitts. But here’s Roland, buying something to surprise his wife and forlornly trying to situate himself in the eddies of a town and a world that he probably — and probably rightly — feels have moved beyond him, have no more need for him. And maybe David’s dad actually — amidst the complaining and the condescending — relates more to Roland than he’d care to admit. He’d griped about Roland upstaging him at the unemployment office, but they’d both ended up getting set up for the benefits. His parents had attended the Schitts’ luau out of pride and had come back giggling; they’d talked about those barbecue ribs for days.

And his mother — she’s not easily flapped or threatened, but then again, neither is Jocelyn, with her bouncy positivity and her persistent inclusion and her, frankly, audacious fashion choices. His mother professes pity for Jocelyn, but the two of them finding each other makes sense in the way that a popular girl who relocates to a new town would latch on to the popular girls in her new town. He doesn’t know if it’s having something in common, or keeping an eye on each other, or finding the closest thing to an ally when it feels everyone around doesn’t understand.

He can never say this to any of them, of course. Which he actually really wants to, because he doesn’t often get to brag about being insightful. But if he says something they’ll get all resistant and self-conscious about it and it’ll just mess things up. And he likes that his parents have friends, even if only because it gets them off his back for, like, five seconds.

“So, you didn’t hear it from me,” he says, and Roland glances up at him, looking unnervingly like a dog at the pound that needs to see a groomer, “but I’ve heard whispers that they want to dedicate a bench to you.”

Roland’s face lights up, then he frowns. “But Bob has a bench.”

Fuck. “I think they were still workshopping it? So. Just — try to stay mum. On that.”

They pass a cheese store that’s having a free tasting and Roland wanders in. David exercises some of his greatest restraint and doesn’t immediately follow, instead shooting off a quick text to Stevie.

**iMessage:** Front Desk Girl ❌  
  
**David:** Do u have Patrick’s #? Need to ask him to do something nice for Roland. No i am not explaining it to u

**Five**

**iMessage:** Mr. Mayor  
  
**Patrick:** Congratulations on the job, David!   
  
**David:** Thank you.  
  
**Patrick:** I can only assume you’ll bring the same discerning taste to this new position that you applied at Brebner’s.   
  
**David:** K I take my thank you back  
  
**David:** btw have you ever tried Ivan’s cinnamon buns  
  
**Patrick:** In fact I had some today  
  
**Patrick:** He brought some when he, Roland, and Bob came to Ray’s to ask about starting a bagel shop  
  
**Patrick:** Something about your dad already getting investors and capital?  
  
**David:** I have no idea what that’s about but I can almost guarantee it was a misunderstanding  
  
**Patrick:** Yeah I figured  
  
**Patrick:** I’m going to let them work it out amongst themselves  
  
**David:** That...is diabolical and I approve  
  
**Patrick:** :)

**Six**

Patrick shows up at the Blouse Barn about a week after David starts working there. He’d hoped that finding a job outside of the technical town limits of Schitt’s Creek would remove him from some of these awkward encounters with people he knows, but Elmdale is practically the big city, and everyone seems to flock here, as he’d so recently and traumatizingly learned with Roland.

Ironically, as he surreptitiously watches Patrick hold the door open for a customer on her way out and then look around at the technicolor vomit bowels of the store, David thinks he finally understands Patrick’s own wardrobe. Like, next to the monstrosities on offer here, Patrick’s clothes look sharp. There’s an intention to them, a simple confidence, clean lines and strong colors and what David would have thought was good tailoring anywhere else in the world but with Patrick is just a good straight-off-the-rack fit. He’s a relief for the eyes in the sea of blouses that seem to be inspired by bus seats or airport carpets or, like, 1980s leotards. God, David needs to speed up the timeline on his intended overhaul of this place.

“Hi,” David says, stepping out from behind one of the oversized jewelry trees Wendy’s weirdly obsessed with. “Welcome to the Blouse Barn. Can I help you find anything today?”

“Oh, hi, David,” Patrick grins. “Thank you, that’s so generous of you.”

“Well, as long as you’re not here to supplement your Meryl Streep roleplay costumery —"

Patrick laughs. “No, not today. Though Jocelyn’s recountings are definitely inspiring.”

David winces. He’s not sure how people in this place decide what is and isn’t taboo to share with all their neighbors. “Would we say inspiring?”

“Yeah, we would,” Patrick nods, and David can’t tell if he’s being serious, and it drives him mad. “Anyway, I’m not actually here for myself today —"

“Shocking news,” David mutters.

“I wanted to return something.”

David squints at him. “Something that _you_ bought here? I’m not judging, I just normally have a pretty good radar for both people’s daylight fashion sensibilities and what they’re into after dark, and —"

“Um,” Patrick says, and he’s gone a little bit goldfish, his eyes and mouth very wide, and oh god, David’s just inadvertently asked the mayor some very sticky indirect questions.

“Okay, not important,” David says quickly, and he waves for Patrick to follow him to the register. “What did you want to return?”

Patrick places a plastic bag on the counter. “Stevie said not to come back without cash.”

David freezes with his hands on the bag. _“Stevie_ sent you?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says innocently. He’s looking over David’s head at some of the _This just in!_ pieces displayed there with a little furrow in his brow. “She said she was swamped with check-ins at the motel —"

“Okay, and _that_ didn’t tip you off that she was fucking with you?” David huffs and withdraws the horrific cheetah print lingerie, holding it with as few fingers as he can manage. It would be _just_ like Stevie to return this and then, like, two hours from now send him photos of her actually wearing it, gross. “That motel has never been _swamped,_ other than in the literal sense that it’s a festering cesspool.”

“Well.” Patrick leans against the counter. “I try to help my constituents where I can.”

“By...returning their undergarments?”

This earns him the little blush he’s been chasing, but Patrick says determinedly, “If necessary.”

“Mmkay, well, I hate to break it to you, but as Stevie _well_ knows, it’s exchange or store credit only.”

“Hmm.” Patrick frowns and turns so he’s fully facing David. “Even for the mayor?”

“What is this?” David demands, smirking, waving a hand at Patrick’s _everything._ “Are you trying to power-pose me into submission?”

“Uh, I wouldn’t put it exactly like that, but is it working?”

“No,” David lies. “And this is probably _exactly_ why Stevie sent you, besides just wanting to mess with me.” He flutters the lingerie in Patrick’s direction. “So do you want to exchange or store credit?”

Patrick opens his mouth, pauses, and then says slowly, “So I’m having a thought.”

“Happens to the best of us, but go on.”

“What if, and I’m of course saying this as Stevie’s friend and mayor who’s trying to help her —"

“Of course,” David nods, because he _really_ likes where this is going.

“What if you, in your expertise and wisdom as a fashion advisor, were to help me pick out an exchange item for Stevie? From the...clearly impressive options this store has to offer, which I can only imagine are _all_ acceptable to Stevie’s fashion sensibilities.”

David sets the lingerie down and squeezes his eyes shut. He has to, or the joy will just bubble right out of him. “Oh, Patrick,” he sighs, “you are so right, Stevie will _love_ what we pick out for her. She was just here last week saying how superior the Blouse Barn’s selection is to her regular flannel.”

“Was she?” Patrick chuckles.

“She was,” David nods. “Effusive praise all over the place. Um, this is possibly the best thing anyone’s ever asked me to do in a professional capacity, and I once got to hold Alicia Keys’s purse for twenty minutes.”

“There you go,” Patrick grins, “helping two of my constituents at once.”

“Okay, I haven’t changed my voter registration or official domicile, so I’m not sure I’m really your constituent, but. Sure.”

They spend the next forty-five minutes perusing the worst clothes the store has to offer, getting deeper and deeper into stretchy, highly flammable items as they debate what Stevie would hate the most. Patrick is starting to turn red from trying to hold in his giggles, and when Wendy gets back from lunch, her confused look at finding David in a heavy debate over a puffy-sleeved lemon-yellow tube top with a nearby municipality’s mayor nearly brings David to a crisis of a daytime oopsie-daisie.

“You’re good at this,” Patrick says frankly, when they’re back at the register, executing the exchange of one hideous item for another.

“At being a terrible friend to Stevie? I am, thank you,” David preens.

“No,” Patrick chuckles, “I meant at your job. At selling products, at giving people advice.”

“Mm. Surprised?”

“No,” Patrick repeats, and David gives him an incredulous look, but Patrick seems to mean it. “I mean, sure, based on the bit of your time at Brebner’s I got to see, I was expecting a bit more overt judginess, but I knew you’d be good at it.”

David doesn’t know what to do with this unfounded, unverified conviction and flounders for a moment before settling on offering Patrick a crumb of honesty. “Don’t tell Wendy,” David whispers, leaning in a little, “but I hate everything in here and it takes all my hard-earned customer service experience from New York to pretend like anything in here is worth buying. I’m working on that, though. Learning about...tax write-offs, and things, so that I can bring in some, like, art and decorations and maybe a leather poncho or two.”

Patrick laughs. David’s not sure he’s ever seen Patrick laugh as much as he has today, not even when Ronnie had provoked some geese into chasing Roland out of the park. “Well, I wish you luck with that,” he says, “and if you ever need help understanding tax write-offs, I have a business degree I don’t put to use much anymore.” He accepts his bagged purchase from David. “And thank you, David, for helping me help Stevie.”

“No, honestly, thank _you,”_ David beams.

**Seven**

“Um...” David slows his purposeful walk into town hall as he sees Patrick, sleeves rolled up and shirt unbuttoned to reveal a white tank top, pushing one of the desks across the room. “Sorry, am I — interrupting?”

“Oh, hey, David. No, not interrupting. The Jazzagals have rehearsal here in a bit but I have a lot of work to do still, so just moving our desks out of the way so I can keep going.”

“Ah.” David hesitates, glancing around the room. He’s realizing he hasn’t been in here before; there are some horrific framed pictures of old men, but there’s also a nicer selection of leaflets and pamphlets than the ones Stevie keeps stocked at the motel. That’s almost definitely Patrick’s doing, though maybe Ronnie is behind it too. She seems like the stealth-reliability type. He grabs one for the Elmdale Botanical Gardens. “Um, isn’t that distracting? All the acapella happening while you... write traffic tickets?” There are few things he can imagine as being worse than acapella; maybe live acoustic performances and public romantic gestures, which are better kept within rom coms.

“Is that what you think I do?” Patrick asks, sounding delighted. “Here, can you help me with this?”

“Oh —" He wants to say no, because he came here to help someone and doesn’t want to be pulled into helping _twice._ “Okay —"

“Just push from that side and I’ll pull,” Patrick directs him, gently directing with a hand on his arm.

As they shift the desk, David notices the name plate at the front of the desk. “This is cute,” he says, pointing at it. _“Mayor Brewer.”_

“Would you believe my mom got that made for me?” Patrick chuckles.

“Um, yes, I would. I would have zero trouble believing that.”

They get all four desks down to the back of the room, then Patrick begins taking chairs from the corner and laying them out in neat rows. He doesn’t ask for David’s help, and David doesn’t offer.

“So, what can I do for you, David?”

“Oh, that’s not — I actually came to give you a heads up.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. Um —" David glances at either entrance to the room; it’s really better if this just stays between them. “So I heard that Ray’s seat on council is open —"

“And you’re running for it?”

David laughs out loud before he can catch himself. “Oh my god, no. No. That’s not — no. I’ve just, um, I’ve been hearing my parents talk about it, and I don’t think _they_ realize it yet, but I’m pretty sure they're both thinking about running but neither of them realizes the other person is running, so you might have them both coming in here, like, five times today to get the form they need, saying they’re running, then saying they’re _not_ running, then saying they’re running again —"

Patrick sets up the last chair and walks back over to David, flapping the open sides of his shirt a bit. David ignores the little drip of sweat running down Patrick’s throat. “Ah. So I should cancel my pedicure.”

David grins. “Yes, I think that would be wise.”

“Well, thanks for the heads-up, David. I like to know what’s coming.”

“I kind of assumed.” He turns to go, then adds, “Um, I think Stevie’s very into Groupons, so she might be able to help you get a good deal on that pedicure, when you’re able to reschedule.”

“Thank you, David,” Patrick says again, with a little smile. “And I recommend the Botanical Gardens in spring. The cherry blossoms are beautiful.”

Later that night, he and Stevie are leaving the Wobbly Elm, having kissed no one but each other, when they pass Patrick in the parking lot.

“Oh! Hi,” David says, stopping so abruptly that Stevie walks right into him.

“Hey guys,” Patrick replies, glancing at their leather jackets. “Are you starting a biker gang, or —"

“This town would not be able to handle our biker gang,” David sniffs. “And no, we were cruising for randoms.”

 _“I_ was cruising for randoms and David inserted himself without welcome,” Stevie corrects.

“Ah,” Patrick nods, squeezing his hands into his jean pockets. “Um — same, I guess.”

“Ooh!” David gives a little shimmy. “Well, unless a bachelor slash bachelorette party has snuck in the back door in the last two minutes, I have to warn you the pickings are pretty slim. I mean, maybe you’re into crusty old men, in which case, more power to you.”

“That is _exactly_ my type, actually.”

Stevie snorts. “Yeah, Bob almost left Gwen for Patrick last year.”

“I know you’re both joking, but I would not put it past any of you,” David says.

“Bob should be so lucky,” Patrick says to Stevie.

 _“Gwen_ should be so lucky,” she shoots back.

They both laugh, and David chuckles half-heartedly; he still barely knows who these people are. “Alright, well, good luck, Mr. Mayor.”

Patrick ducks his head and waves with a little smile, and Stevie sets off again in the direction of the road back into town, but David hesitates and glances back. Patrick’s just opening the door to the bar, and he looks back too, seeming to sense David’s gaze. He pauses, backlit by the weird blue light of the neon bar ads in the bar’s front hallway.

Maybe...

David thinks about kissing Stevie, and the people drunk-asleep under the pool table, and about Patrick laughing at David’s snide comments about everything the Blouse Barn has to offer.

Maybe, but no.

He waves one more time to Patrick and hurries to catch up with Stevie.

**Eight**

David spots Patrick in the last booth at the cafe, the one he knows Twyla saves for him when he’s had a particularly mayor-y day. He vacillates by the counter, but ultimately he grabs his to-go container and does some quick calming breathing exercises and then winds through the dinner crowd towards Patrick’s booth.

“Hi Patrick,” he says brightly, channeling Alexis as he invites himself to take a seat. “How are you?”

Patrick freezes with a piece of bacon halfway to his mouth. “Hi David,” he says cautiously. He glances over his shoulder. “Everything okay?”

“Of course! Of course,” David lies. God, how do people do this? Smiling is exhausting. “I was just working, you know, at my job, the, um, the job I have in Elmdale, and so now I’m here, picking up dinner, and _you’re_ here, so. I thought I’d just.” He taps the edge of his takeout container. “Swing by and catch up.”

“Catch...up,” Patrick repeats slowly. He pushes back his plate slightly and wipes his hands on a napkin, considering David. His gaze makes David want to squirm and wriggle right off this cheap plastic seat and out that door. “Forgive me, David, if I seem surprised, but I remember you saying something about us... not being friends?”

David has to apply the masterclass that was growing up watching his father not react to his mother’s histrionics in order to school his face into order, despite the desire to cringe. “Did I... did I say that?”

“You did,” Patrick affirms. David gets why this town chose him as mayor — the voters who didn’t do it as a joke, anyway; he’s kind of small and compact but sitting here, wielding the full force of his bemused, amused smile, he takes up the whole booth. “There were witnesses.”

“Mmkay, most of the people at that party were definitely at least a little bit drunk, so can they be trusted? And it’s been, like, _months,_ since I said that.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to let me know when there’s an opening.” Patrick punctuates this by lifting the pickle slice that had come with his sandwich and sliding it — the whole damn thing — into his mouth. “I only really _catch up_ with people who call me their friends, see.”

David squeezes his hands together under the table to keep himself from scratching his own neck open. He is already putting himself out on a limb for _one_ person; does he have to embarrass himself _twice over?_ Plus, it’s not that long ago that he and Patrick had wanted to strangle each other; can’t they take that as a win? “Okay, forget I said anything about catching up. I am here, as your _constituent_ —"

“Oh, so you’ve officially changed your voter registration and your legal domicile?”

“— as your _constituent,”_ he persists, “to ask for your frank assessment of the candidates for the vacant Town Council seat.”

Patrick slings a smug arm along the back of the booth, grinning. “What’s with the sudden interest in politics, David?”

“See, now _that_ sounds a lot like _catching up —"_

“My frank assessment? Both Jocelyn and your mother would be welcome additions to the team. They both have the kind of vision and...tenacity we need. I respect them both as individuals and members of the community, and I’ll be thrilled to work with the winner of this race.”

David wrinkles his nose. “Ew. I’ve never heard you sound like such a politician.”

Patrick laughs, and David likes it, even with the little waft of pickle breath it sends his way. “I’m not being a politician right now. I mean, I am, but that’s really just what I think.”

“Mhm.” David gnaws his lip. “And have you, maybe, considered... _endorsing_ one of the candidates?”

“Huh.” Patrick widens his stance, somehow; David hadn’t thought that was possible, but he feels their knees knock under the table and he resists the impulse to pull his legs in. He doesn’t know if Patrick is posturing or teasing or puffing himself up or _what,_ but David will _not_ be cowed by it. “Endorsing one of the candidates for council. That’s a really intriguing idea, David.”

“Yeah, yeah, it is. Um, for example, my mother, while perhaps an... _unconventional_ choice by some measures, could really — I think she’d — there’s a certain _flair_ she could add to the proceedings,” he says helplessly. “Like, no one will ever fall asleep in the meetings, that’s for sure!”

“You make an interesting point.” Patrick slides forward now, arms on the table, and oh no, this is worse than whatever the fuck he’d been doing a minute ago; now he’s intensely coiled, leaning towards David. “But on the other hand, Jocelyn can probably relate to the townspeople more.”

“That’s —" There’s no way David can refute that. He probably should’ve workshopped this. “Sure, maybe. But what about this: my mother is _incredibly_ persuasive, like _scarily_ persuasive. Want people to agree to an excessive tax increase? She’ll convince them they’re buying into, like, an elite club. Need a good spin on how many potholes there are this year? Forget about it. Like, literally, she will make people forget about it. She’ll invent some totally unrelated thing for people to focus on. Potholes who?”

“I do like the sound of that,” Patrick muses. He rubs a hand over his chin and David wonders if negotiations are always this thrilling. “I have to admit, though, I’m a real fan of Jocelyn’s style.”

“Her —" David swallows. “Her _style?_ Please tell me you mean her _leadership_ style —"

“Oh, no, I’m absolutely talking about her clothes. Her fashion sense is just — I think it moves people, you know? I don’t know if it’s misogynistic to focus on that when there are real issues at stake —"

“You’re fucking with me,” David blurts out, because he can’t help it, and oh fuck, Patrick’s laughing at him. “You _are_ fucking with me!” he accuses, and Patrick has to lean back to avoid getting a jabbing finger to the eye. “Oh my _god,”_ he huffs.

“Yeah, Ronnie told me hours ago that I could expect a visit from you,” Patrick chuckles. He picks his sandwich back up with a pleased little smirk. “I have to say, David, I think it’s really sweet that you’re going to bat for your mom.”

“It’s not sweet,” David corrects him quickly. “It’s not _sweet._ This is entirely about self-preservation. If she loses this election she’ll be _insufferable.”_

“So sweet,” Patrick hums around a bite.

“No, this has been _purely_ selfish, and if you tell anyone otherwise, I will — officially never be friends with you!”

Patrick doesn’t look nearly as wounded by this as he’d hoped. “You must think a lot of yourself, if that’s the worst threat you can make.”

David snarls and snatches up his takeout box. “You _wish_ you were friends with me!” He’s so, so fucking glad Stevie’s not here to witness this. He’s only gotten several steps away when he realizes he never actually got an answer. Shoulders up to his ears, he slides back Patrick’s way and pops a hip jauntily. “Umm, so, is that a no on the endorsement?”

Patrick nearly chokes on his sandwich around the laugh this provokes. “It’s a no, David, but it’s nothing against your mom,” he says earnestly, probably more earnestly than David deserves. “I meant what I said. I think they’d both be great.”

He’s right, and David hates it, because it’s so much easier to dislike people who stand in his mom’s way when they’re not, like, pleasant and thoughtful and surprisingly, endearingly sneaky. “Okay. That’s — that’s fine, I guess.”

“And I do really think it’s admirable that you’d ask.” Why doesn’t Ray put Patrick’s face on bus stop benches and business cards? That earnest mug could sell even the rattiest of houses. “It’s adorable, how much you love your mom and want her to succeed.”

“Ew. That’s not — that’s not what this was.”

He turns to go, but Patrick says his name again. “Hey David, you know what I _do_ endorse?”

David scowls. He’s entirely sure he doesn’t want to know. “What?”

Patrick blinks up at him. “Friendship.”

“Okay, byeeeeee.”

**Nine**

“Hey! Hey Patrick!”

Patrick’s almost halfway back to Ray’s, and David was already hustling to catch him and return to the cafe before his meal was prepared, and now he’s almost _jogging,_ which is humiliating. It’s broad daylight.

He catches up to Patrick near the Schitts’ house and immediately brandishes the wad of bills at him. “Here.”

“Oh.” Patrick pats his pockets. “Did I drop that?”

David rolls his eyes. “No. I know it’s hard to believe but this is _my_ money, which I’ve earned through _working,_ and now I’m giving it to you.”

“Oh,” Patrick says again. He frowns. “Are you trying to pay your taxes or something?”

“Look, you don’t need to play coy with me. Twyla told me you paid my dad’s tab.”

Patrick at least has the decency to look a little abashed, though he still pushes the money back towards David. “That’s not — you don’t have to — I did, but it wasn’t a loan, or anything. You don’t need to repay me.”

“I kind of do,” David insists. “I don’t like being indebted to people.”

“You’re not indebted to me,” Patrick says patiently. “Neither is your dad. I wasn’t trying to make it a thing — I just heard that things were tight and I wanted to help out.”

David retracts the money and pinches it between a few fingers, keeping it clearly visible between them; he’s grasping now that this is going to be a longer negotiation than he’d expected, but he’s not giving up. Twyla can microwave his soup if it’s cold by the time he gets back. “I appreciate that, and I understand that’s how things sometimes work in this town, which I do not understand, but I don’t think — you shouldn’t do that, for people. At least not for people like _us._ It starts with letting us live for free in the motel and paying my dad’s lunch debt and then before you know it we’re grifting the town for all it’s worth.”

“Don’t you own the town? And want to sell it?” Patrick asks slowly. “So wouldn’t bankrupting the town and driving it into abject ruin be, well, kind of self-defeating?”

David blinks. “Okay, yes, but it’s — there are many ways in which we could take advantage of your kindness.” He offers the money again. “Please, just take it.”

“Is it taking advantage if you really need it, though?”

“Listen, I’m not debating philosophy with you,” David groans.

“Oh, can’t we just for a minute?” Patrick teases. “I’ve tried to philosophize with Ray but he just starts referencing all the daytime soaps he watches while he works and how they’re a demonstration of Kantian deontology and I —"

“I will keep ten of these dollars and buy you a philosophy book from a yard sale if you just take the rest of it,” David pleads.

Patrick laughs, but he finally holds out his palm. David slaps down the money and watches as Patrick, of course, does actually retract a ten dollar note from the wad. “I’m only accepting this repayment because I’m worried you’re liable to do something unsafe if I don’t,” he explains, a teasing, chiding tone to his voice that David shouldn’t find so charming. “I really don’t mind helping out, and I really don’t expect anything in return.”

“I know,” David admits, curling the ten into his fist. “And that’s why I feel the need to pay you back.”

Patrick looks at him for a long moment before nodding slowly. “Okay.”

“Um. So. Thanks,” David says, and he starts to walk away. “I’m gonna buy you the shittiest book I can find!” he calls over his shoulder. “All dog-ears and notes written in pen and food stains and pressed-in boogers —"

“I will treasure it forever!” he hears Patrick shout after him.

**Ten**

It’s a gorgeous evening, the sky over the town fading into lavender and pale pink and gray, the streets smelling like freshly mowed lawns and barbecues. Normally David considers the tables outside the cafe to be a last resort, but when the weather is this nice, the tables become as hot an item as a bar stool at Please Don’t Tell on a Thursday night.

He and Alexis don’t dine alone together often, and sitting side by side on their phones, occasionally showing each other tweets, and waiting for Twyla to bring their meals reminds him of Paris in 2007. Fortunately, this is not Paris in 2007, and when Alexis goes to use the cafe restroom he knows she’ll actually come back and not end up in Lithuania.

Twyla reappears before Alexis does, though, and he’s eyeing Alexis’s salad and wondering if she’d notice if he started in on his sandwich when Patrick comes jogging up in a t-shirt and long athletic shorts. David would honestly think they’re something from his own closet — the length, the low crotch — if he didn’t fucking obviously know better. His mouth is already open, ready to receive the sandwich, so he doesn’t think the mayor notices his slightly shocked reaction to Patrick’s knees and forearms and sweat patches.

“Hi David,” Patrick pants. He steadies himself with a hand on the back of Alexis’s vacant chair and stretches, tucking one leg up behind him, his sweaty shirt riding up a bit. “Dining alone?”

David gestures to the second set of cutlery. _“Obviously_ not.”

Patrick grins and switches legs. “Which of your parents are you pretending to be waiting for?”

David properly sets his sandwich down; he can’t gesture with it and risk losing an onion slice. “First of all, there is _no shame_ in eating alone. Sometimes eating by yourself is the lesser of many evils. Second of all, my _sister_ is inside, this is _her_ salad, I am not a total _freak._ And third, my parents are both at some — party at Ronnie’s. A campaign thing.”

“Oh, right! I forgot that was tonight,” Patrick nods, undeterred by David’s vociferous protestations. “Ronnie invited me, but I figured it wouldn’t be fair, given the whole not-endorsing-a-candidate thing.”

David frowns. “Ronnie invited _you?”_

Patrick chuckles and starts doing some side-to-side bendy stretch David thinks he’s seen Alexis do before runs; it’s certainly never looked like _this,_ though. It’s wildly rude to expect him to be able to hold a conversation while Patrick’s doing this. “Yeah, I was shocked too, given that it’s Ronnie.”

“But are you...” David can’t think of a single casual way to ask this. Now that he thinks about it, he’s been making some assumptions about Patrick’s gender identity. But maybe he’d misheard his mom’s description of the event; maybe it was for _thespians?_ He frowns at Patrick, trying to imagine him in a local theater production. “I was under the impression the event was for lesbians? So now I’m wondering if I misunderstood, or if you’re —”

“Oh,” Patrick chuckles, not unkindly. “No, I’m not a lesbian. I am gay, though. As in, I like men.”

“Okay,” David says, super casually, super chill, as if he’s had cute young annoying mayors come out to him before. He’s _wondered,_ though. So it’s nice to know. For, well. Curiosity’s sake. “So why did Ronnie invite you?”

“Ah, I see your confusion.” Patrick’s seemingly done with his little stretchercize routine and leans on Alexis’s chair instead, his shoulders and arms all thick and just _there_ in front of David, who is suddenly very thirsty for his lemonade. “The event tonight is _not_ for lesbians, or not just for them, anyway, I imagine they’re welcome —" And oh, David shouldn’t find it so cute that Patrick is both queer and apparently very awkward talking about queer things, but he does. He also has just enough self-awareness and filter to recognize that that’s a tad condescending and not actually say it out loud. “Anyway, Ronnie has an association for women in business, and she’s been trying to get them more politically engaged.”

Just then, Alexis comes floating out of the cafe; if Patrick weren’t here, David would ask her what took so long, and they’d probably bicker, but bathroom jokes are something he reserves for impolite company. “Oh, hi, Patrick! Don’t you look cute in your little sporty shorts.”

Patrick ducks his head with a bashful grin as he backs away to let her sit. David feels a secret little thrill knowing that the blush Alexis has earned has nothing to do with mutual interest of the sexual variety. “Hi Alexis, good to see you.”

“Ooh, yum,” she gushes at her plate, even though it’s a fucking _salad._ David appreciates the health and cultural value of leafy greens but there is no _yum_ there.

“Yeah, still not following why you should’ve been at this women-in-business event,” David says to Patrick as he watches Alexis _cut_ a piece of arugula _with a knife._

Patrick, all patience, smirks at David like he can hear the commentary that’s happening in David’s head. “Ronnie and I have been working on an investment program to support woman-owned businesses. I know, shocking,” he laughs, off David’s expression, “Ronnie and I cooperating. She’ll be thrilled to have someone other than Bob and me to work with, I’m sure.”

“And that someone will be our mother!” Alexis beams.

David twists his answering smile, trying to tuck it away before she sees. Alexis knows as well as he does that his mother has had regular mini-breakdowns during this campaign; she too hears Moira through the walls as she vents her frustrations and doubts to Johnny. And she knows as well as he does the value of a united family front, even to someone as nonthreatening and trustworthy as Patrick. “Yes,” he says softly, “it will be.”

He looks at Patrick, daring him to defy them, but Patrick’s expression looks a lot like some kind of pride.

**Eleven**

“Thank you, again, so much, for offering,” David says, trying to achieve a balance of grateful but still vaguely aloof; he’s fairly sure he’s just trending towards desperate. “It’s very gracious of you, and Ray, I guess. And probably means I won’t be murdering Roland and Melissa Manchester, at least for tonight.”

“Well, Ray’s out for another couple hours at a Paint n’ Sip night in Elmdale, but you’re welcome,” Patrick assures him. “And yeah, Roland had three theme songs during the campaign, so I remember vividly what it’s like to be assailed by the same songs over, and over, and over.”

David winces. “Oof.”

“Yeah. If you want to leave your bag here, I’ve made dinner.”

David drops his overnight bag by the stairs — very curious what _that’s_ about; does Ray have another spare bedroom that he hasn’t managed to rent out? — and follows Patrick into the kitchen. “So I’m picturing Roland striding onto the stage in town hall while Jocelyn holds up a boombox with his song of choice.”

Patrick laughs. “Well, unfortunately you’re not far off with _that_ mental image. One week he decided “Careless Whisper” would be the appropriate anthem for his walk-on music.” He snags a large wooden bowl and a napkinful of cutlery and hands them to David. “Could you put these on the table?

Patrick has made something called an egg pie, which sounds extremely mushy and gross but is actually delicious, with lots of herbs and a flaky crust and bits of turkey baked in. There’s also a green salad with a light vinaigrette and chilled white wine. David hums around the first mouthful and starts arranging another bite on his fork before he’s even finished chewing. “You should ask Twyla if you can cook for the cafe. Honestly, if you’re really serious about public service, that might be the best way you can aid the community. Alexis is going to be so jealous.”

Patrick leans back in his chair. “Oh, I mean, we don’t have enough beds for her or your parents to escape Roland’s music, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t join us for dinner.” He goes so far as to set his fork down and pull his phone out of his pocket. He has to shift on his chair to do it, to wiggle it out of his tight jeans. David bites down on his fork. “Should I text Alexis?”

“Okay, I know that you’re just doing this to get me riled up, but you’re also the weird kind of nice person who actually _would_ do that, so please put that away. Please,” he repeats, pushing at Patrick’s phone with the side of his hand.

Patrick grins at David, and keeps grinning at him even as he goes back to eating. David waits for the food to drop from Patrick’s fork and onto his nice shirt so that he can snark at him about _that’s what you get for not watching what you’re doing,_ but Patrick maneuvers a heaping bite of pie and salad without mishap. Probably coordination from years of playing sports.

“You know, all this time I thought Ray was the cook, between the two of you,” David comments, redirecting his own attention away from Patrick’s oily lower lip.

“Oh, I know.” At David’s questioning look, Patrick clarifies, “At Brebner’s. When you mocked my purchases?”

David chokes a little. “There’s a lot of — black pepper,” he sputters, pouring himself a glass of wine. “In this salad. Um, hold a grudge much?”

“It was just a memorable third impression,” Patrick shrugs, testing the taut seams across his shoulders. “You were very judgy and very funny.”

“Mmm! Well, I’m nothing if not up front about my personality,” David says darkly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Patrick says, sitting back a little, watching David eating again; David should introduce him to mukbang. “I find my ... understanding of you to be constantly evolving, David.”

“Hmm.” David feels a sudden pang of surreality, sitting here in Ray’s unimpressive dining room like he had with his parents over a year ago, though it’s quieter now, in this room and in David himself, somehow. “Likewise. For example, I realized recently that I don’t find you nearly as annoying as I used to.”

“Aww.” Patrick’s mouth turns down, his own version of suppressing a smile. “I guess I’ll have to try harder.”

“Heaven help us,” David says dryly.

Patrick lifts his glass. “A toast. To being open to changing our opinions of each other. And ourselves.”

David daintily wipes his mouth on his napkin before raising his own glass and gently clinking it with Patrick’s. “Well, isn’t that sweet.”

“One of us has to be,” Patrick says, and of course he’s timed it so that David’s mid-sip, and he sputters indignantly as he tries to not choke on this surprisingly good wine. Then of course Patrick adds, “Swallow, David,” because he’s a _dick._ If David makes a show of hollowing his cheeks as he swallows, well. Don’t play with fire, et cetera et cetera.

They’ve just begun loading the dishwasher when David’s phone vibrates. He wouldn’t check it if he didn’t need an excuse to look away from Patrick’s fingers deftly aligning plates.

“Oh,” he says, frowning. “It’s Stevie. I guess Roland is gone?”

“Oh,” Patrick echoes. He turns, leaning against the sink as he dries his hands. “I guess you’ll want to head back, then?”

“Um.” David doesn’t know why he’s hesitating; sleeping at Ray’s isn’t exactly on his bucket list. “I guess so.”

“I mean, you’re welcome to stay,” Patrick says quickly. “But I just — I imagine you prefer your own bed.”

“I do. I would prefer if it were _not_ four feet away from my sister, but.” He feels oddly like a handshake is necessary, but they’re not those people. Okay, _Patrick_ is those people. Still. “Um. Thank you again, for offering refuge from that whole...situation.”

“Anytime,” Patrick says easily.

“Mm, don’t say that,” David chuckles. “Now that I know you actually _can_ cook, I’m liable to show up without warning.”

“Well, I’ll be glad to have you,” and David almost misses the teasing, for the way this sincerity itches and lingers. “Here, let me send some dessert back with you. There’s enough for all four of you.”

David walks home with a plastic container filled with peach cobbler and a lingering confusion about why this night, which is mercifully ending with neither Roland’s incessant song loops or Ray’s paisley couch cushions, still feels unfinished.

**Twelv** **e**

David’s halfway back to the motel, and maybe he should ask the Blouse Barn attorney to push their appointment back a day, but he’s — he’s itching for it, now, now that he’s done the research and gotten Alexis involved. So he calls Patrick.

“Hello?’

“Hi,” David calls, covering one ear as a car whizzes by. “Um — I don’t know if this is a bad time — I stopped by Ray’s but he said you were out —"

“Yeah, I’m just getting back to my car, I went for a hike. What’s up? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, no... emergency, per se, but I wanted — I wanted to ask for your professional opinion on something.”

He hears a car door open and shut and the quality of the background noise on the other end of the call changes. “I still can’t endorse your mom, David.”

“Oh my god, no, it’s not that. It’s your _other_ profession. The, um, the business consulting? I think you said you still do that —"

“Oh! Yeah, of course. As you may have noticed, being the mayor doesn’t pay all the bills.”

David’s not sure how to answer that without insulting Patrick’s lifestyle, so he just kind of hums and says, “And I can pay your fee, for this — I mean, probably; I should probably get a quote from you first, before I say that I can pay it —"

“David,” Patrick laughs, “you don’t have to pay me. I give all my friends one business advisory session for free.”

“You’re still _really_ hung up on this friends thing.”

“Do you want the discount?”

“So, _friend,”_ David says quickly, and Patrick laughs again, and if it makes David smile as he crosses the parking lot to the motel, well, no one need know. “I have a meeting this afternoon with a lawyer from this big retailer from Australia that wants to buy the name Blouse Barn from Wendy, my boss at _our_ Blouse Barn —"

“Okay,” Patrick says, and David wonders if he’s taking notes, wonders if he keeps a little pen and pad of paper in his glove compartment and is taking notes and following this whole bizarre situation; he almost definitely is.

“And they offered Wendy $10,000, which even _I_ understand is a lot of money to most people, but I just — I don’t know, I felt like that wasn’t really enough, and I asked my dad and _he_ said she should take the money, but between his current desperation and his, um, how shall I put this, kind of old-fashioned approach to things, I’m not sure I trust his opinion? Which. Don’t tell him I said that.” He’s in his room now, and he quickly checks the room next door to make sure his dad is not in earshot. “And I’ve been doing some research, but maybe I’m just looking for research that supports what I think is the right answer? And I don’t want to screw things up for Wendy. So I was wondering if you knew anything about this kind of stuff and if you could give me an objective, professional opinion?”

“Huh.” Okay, David can definitely hear a scribbling pen now; it’s the only thing that gets him through the long silence that follows his word explosion. “Well, this isn’t really my area of expertise — I’m more familiar with small business matters — but why don’t you walk me through the research you’ve done and we’ll see what we can determine.”

So David pulls up his notes on his laptop and puts Patrick on speakerphone and explains what he’s learned about rebranding costs and proprietary names and Blouse Barn Australia’s profit margins and their recent expansion announcements, and Patrick asks insightful questions and laughs when Alexis comes swooping into the room and tries to participate in the call, which is super annoying of her. And when David ends the call, buoyed with new confidence, he rises dramatically to his feet and tells Alexis, “Start on your fashion pony. I’m getting my suit.”

After Wendy calls him back into her office, David texts Patrick **good news** and a picture of the check.

Patrick responds with a ‘holy cow’ gif from some TV show David doesn’t recognize.

**iMessage:** Mr. Mayor  
  
**Patrick:** David! That’s amazing!   
  


He glances over at Alexis, who’s driving them both home, looking pretty pleased with herself.

**David:** Thank you  
  
**David:** I’m really glad I listened to you and not my dad.   
  


He squints at his phone guiltily and feels the need to make an amendment.

**David:** bless his well-intentioned heart.  
  
**Patrick:** This was all you, David.   
  
**David:** um, it very much was not  
  
**Patrick:** All I did was support the decision you’d already made. You did the research and preparation and negotiation all on your own.   
  
**David:** you’re right, I WAS on my own. Alexis was almost more a liability than anything  
  
**Patrick:** Congratulations, David. And nice suit  
  
**David:** WHAT?  
  
**Patrick:** Alexis sent me a selfie  
  


“Why did you send Patrick a selfie? When did you even take that?” David demands. Alexis just flips her ponytail at him.

**Patrick:** By the way — big election news here in town  
  
**David:** oh god  
  
**Patrick:** Jocelyn dropped out  
  
**David:** WHAT  
  
**David:** why??   
  
**Patrick:** Apparently Roland was bribing voters with illicit substances  
  
**Patrick:** Which I promise I will be talking to him about  
  
**David:** yeah not even gonna touch that one  
  
**David:** what does that mean??   
  
**Patrick:** Your mom wins, by default  
  


“Oh god,” David mutters; he wonders how his mom will take it, not getting to fight it out til the end, winning but in such an inglorious way. Then — “Oh my god, Alexis, Mom won the election!”

“What?!” She reaches over to smack his arm. “What?! How? I thought the vote wasn’t until November.”

“Oh my god, that’s not — this is a town council election, Alexis, not — Nevermind. Patrick said Jocelyn dropped out.”

“Ooooh, I smell drama,” Alexis says gleefully.

When he looks back at his phone, Patrick has texted,

**Patrick:** What are you going to do now? Since you’re unemployed again.  
  
**David:** Okay can I not have FIVE minutes to enjoy the victory without being MALIGNED?   
  
**David:** But also, I don’t know and it’s stressing me out  
  
**Patrick:** I look forward to witnessing your next undertaking, David. I’m sure you will excel.   
  
**Patrick:** (I feel the need to clarify that that is not sarcasm.)  
  


David smiles out the window the rest of the ride back to town and doesn’t even complain when Alexis takes over the radio.

**Thirteen**

“Come here often?”

For the second time tonight, David finds himself unceremoniously interrupted mid-bite. This time it’s Patrick, not Jake, and he doesn’t know if that makes it more or less embarrassing to be accosted when he’s got half a dip-laden chip in his teeth.

“Hi,” he mumbles around the snack. “We meet again.”

“We do,” Patrick chuckles. He’s wearing a snug little grey shirt, noticeable for its generous exposure of his arms and, um, his prominent pecs, which are bordering on obscene, not that David has opinions about that, at all. Not for the first time, he wonders if the mayor is ever off the clock, if he’s ever able to take off that hat and just be Patrick, or if there are always unspoken boundaries he has to maintain. “You seem to be having a fun night.”

“Um, is that a dig at my shame-eating?”

“No,” Patrick says quickly, putting out a hand in supplication. “I just — I saw you chatting with Jake, and that’s usually the start of a fun night.”

“Is it?” David glances at Patrick’s plastic cup, wonders how loose his tongue is. Okay, thinking about Patrick’s tongue was a bad idea. “And how, um, how do _you _know Jake?”__

__“Oh —" Patrick gestures casually, but his eyes dart to the side, his cheeks darkening a little, and there’s a _story_ there. “We’re both in Queer Qreek, an affiliation group Ronnie started.” _ _

__“Oof,” David winces, “I could _hear_ the double Q in there.” _ _

__“Yeah, Ray came up with the name,” Patrick admits. “He’s not _in_ the group, he’s just, uh, excessively supportive.”_ _

__“Mm! I know the type. My dad has been known to go out of his way to let me know how much he approves of my, uh, liaisons.”_ _

__“Wow,” Patrick whistles. “That’s — that’s special.”_ _

__“It really is.” David glances over to where Alexis is talking to Ted and his heart clenches. He’ll complain about having no space from his family until he’s blue in the face, and that’s _valid,_ but it’s still a staggering thing to know where his sister is, to know who she cares about, to have her and his parents involved in his life. “It can be a lot, but it — it’s better than the alternative. I’m — um. If my dad _has_ to have an opinion about my love life, I guess him being, like, suffocatingly invested is not the worst thing.” _ _

__“He and Ray could start a Qreek Allies group,” Patrick suggests._ _

__“Oh my god, imagine?” David smiles into his drink._ _

__“You’re welcome to join the group, of course,” Patrick adds. “I don’t — I don’t presume to know how you — however you identify, you’re welcome.”_ _

__David’s heart does another funny little flutter. “Thank you. Maybe I’ll bring some popcorn and watch you and Ronnie go at it.”_ _

__“That sounded dirtier than you intended it to, didn’t it?”_ _

__David laughs. “Ew, Patrick.”_ _

__“And, uh, hey,” Patrick starts, oddly serious all of a sudden, and David finds he’s holding his breath. “I, uh — well, Jake’s headed this way again, but if you’re still here later, we should share another dance, as per our annual tradition.”_ _

__David glances back; Jake is, indeed, winding his way through the crowd, and David will need to find Stevie to witness this, if Jake’s simmering gaze is any indication (and it is; David _knows_ these things, knows when people are into him). “Annual tradition?” he asks distractedly. “We’ve only done it once.” _ _

__“True, which means we need to do it this year to make it a tradition.” Patrick touches his arm, and David turns back from craning around for Stevie. “No pressure. I hope your night goes, uh, goes the way you want it to. But come find me, later, if you — if you want.”_ _

__“Okay,” David says, and he watches Patrick disappear into the crowd, and for a moment before Jake reaches him, he tries to figure out which way he wants his night to go._ _


	3. Season 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is basically as long as the first two combined, shrug emoji
> 
> Thank you again to reymanova for correcting my spelling of alfredo, knowing who's wearing what pants, and all the other amazing things you do  
> Thank you to januarium for the amazing texting magic!

**One**  
“Is it safe to come in?” Moira calls from the other side of the door that (poorly) divides their rooms. “Has pulchritudinous Jacob vacated the space?”

“He’s been gone for, like, _six hours!_ ” David yells back, ignoring Alexis’s titters and the blush that his family’s teasing does _not_ merit and the vaguely unsettled feeling he’s had since learning that Jake is also dating — seeing — sleeping with — _talking_ to Stevie.

The door swings open and his mother flounces through, carrying one of the contained little smiles that means she thinks she’s being clever. “I hope we’ll be seeing him again soon?”

“That’s really none of your business,” he grumbles.

“How was your first day of council, Mom?” Alexis chimes in.

“Ooh, yes, tell us,” David says quickly, because there’s no faster route out of an awkward conversation than coaxing his mother’s ego into a topic change.

“Thank you for your support, my progeny. We had a fabulous opening night. A sterling crowd. I admit I felt a bit of an understudy, an ingenue on her first big production, but my fellow actors on the stage of small government will show me the cues and the scene-blockings. Especially our dear mayor, sweet Pat. He asked me to bid you kon’nichiwa, David.”

David can almost hear Alexis’s neck crick as she whips to stare at him. “Did he?” he says as casually as he can manage. “That’s...nice.”

“And now that your mother has found gainful employ bettering the community —"

“Do you even get paid?” David grins.

“Maybe my darling children will forge their own paths into the wilderness of work. Something to think about!” she trills as she wanders back into her own room.

“Have you forgotten that I got us _so much money,_ like, last week, basically?” David calls after her.

“Yeah, and I helped!” Alexis huffs, but Moira’s already launched into an unfortunate solo rendition of “Springtime for Hitler”. “Um, so, what’s _that_ about, David?”

“What’s what about?” David asks, knowing full well.

“Patrick saying _hi_ through Mom.”

“So what?” David shrugs. “We’re —" He stops, swallows. He’d been about to say _friends,_ which is true, but if he tells Alexis that they’re friends, she’ll eventually somehow tell Patrick, who will tease David forever.

“Mhm, you _are,”_ Alexis hums, winking badly.

“Okay, I don’t know what you’re implying, but did you _not_ see Jake in this _very_ room earlier? He and I had a very productive —"

“Ew, oh my god, stop, I do _not_ want to know!”

“Just because _you_ put out for every cute boy who says _hey_ —"

“Glass houses and stones, David!” his mother calls from the next room.

David gasps, affronted, but Alexis squeals, “You think Patrick’s _cute,_ David?!”

“G’night!” David yells.

“It’s 7:30, dear!”

**Two**  
“When are you going to pave that part of Route 13, though?” David asks over drinks at the Wobbly Elm.

Stevie snorts into her beer, a bit of foam dribbling down her chin; David pretends to gag and hands her a napkin.

“Let me just go get my paving machinery and get on that,” Patrick nods. He’s already several beers in and seems loose and comfortable. For the past ten minutes he’s been tossing his little plastic drink straw at David’s glass, trying to get it in. It’s annoying, and Patrick’s probably going to say kobe or wagyu or whatever when he finally gets it in, and David will have to abandon his drink because that straw has been _all over_ the table by now. And yet he keeps picking up the straw when Patrick misses and handing it back to him.

“Okay, obviously not you _personally,_ but like, it’s your job to make people do these things, right?”

Patrick wobbles his hand back and forth. “In the broadest sense, I guess so. But there are departments and teams for that. I’m not usually involved in the day-to-day minutia as much.”

“Alright,” David says, as the straw nearly hits him in the eye, “you weren’t even trying that time. Also, the holes on Route 13 are an _abomination,_ so I think it’s in your best interest as mayor to tell your departments and teams to do something about it.”

“Huh,” is the only response he gets. Stevie snorts again. She does this sometimes, when they hang out, just goes nonverbal with apparent glee as she watches David spar with Patrick.

“Huh _what?”_

“No, it’s just, I didn’t realize that when your mom joined town council I’d be getting _multiple_ Roses engaged in civic activities.”

“Mmm, nope, that’s not what’s happening here,” David avers. “I could care less about your lil podunk tumbleweed of a town’s reputation, I would just like the tires on my family’s hard-earned car to not blow out every time I drive to Elmdale.”

“You don’t have to have a selfless reason to engage with local government, David. You can do it for purely self-centered reasons.”

“Alright, I thought I would finally get _something_ out of this friendship other than cruel teasing, but I can see you’re just as corrupt as other politicians.”

He expects Patrick to make a whole _thing_ out of his sue of the word friendship, but the drink straw lands squarely in David’s drink, and Stevie and Patrick both let out a yell.

“David,” Patrick says, when they run into each other in the town’s tacky excuse for a general store, “did you write an anonymous letter to the editor about the potholes in Route 13?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” David sniffs, and just because he’s feeling prickly he grabs the more expensive toilet paper. He’ll charge it to the hotel; he can do that, right? Like a tax write-off, but for someone else.

“Just come to council with this issue, David. You’re unemployed, you have the time.”

“Okay, _rude.”_

He bribes Alexis with three selfishes to go to council on his behalf; he skulks in a seat in the back of town hall while she rattles through the talking points he’d written out. Of course Patrick thanks Alexis and then calls out to David that he actually just needs to submit a repair request to the local transportation authority on their website.

“Why the f—fuschia didn’t you just tell me that?!” David demands, catching himself from scarring the class of first graders who’d come to watch government in action.

Ronnie cackles. At least _someone’s_ enjoying themself.

**Three**  
“So what’s the most dastardly way you’ve abused your power as mayor, Patrick?”

It’s getting on to midnight, and David, Stevie, and Patrick are sitting on a picnic table behind the motel, passing a bottle of whiskey between them. David had seen Stevie spiralling into total shutdown after she’d received the news about inheriting the motel and had called Patrick in for reinforcements. Stevie’s leaning against David’s side now, her temple resting on his shoulder in a way she will disavow ever happened when she doesn’t have a small dinner party’s worth of alcohol in her system.

Patrick, on the other side of David, hesitates with his lips a breath away from taking another slug. “Well, if I _have_ abused it, I certainly can’t tell you.”

David and Stevie both gasp. Well, Stevie manages more of a disgruntled hiccup, but it gets the point across. “You can’t tell _us,_ your most trusted, your most valued, your most dear —"

“You would sell me out for a good hamburger,” Patrick says dryly.

“That’s fair,” Stevie hums.

“Given how challenging it is to _find_ a good hamburger around here? I _would_ have to consider it, at least. They shouldn’t be that hard to get right!”

“Maybe that should be your next project,” Stevie suggests, pushing herself off from David’s arm and struggling down onto the bench of the picnic table so that she can see them both. David has to grab her wrist to keep her from falling off entirely. “Start a hamburger joint.”

Patrick laughs, and David has to agree. “Can you imagine? One, I’d have to buy a whole new wardrobe, because nothing I own can be exposed to aerosolized grease for extended periods of time. Two, I like to think about where the meat I eat comes from as little as possible.”

“I actually know a lot about where local meat comes from,” Patrick says, handing David the bottle. “In my not-the-mayor capacity, I review contracts for a bunch of local restaurants, so I can tell you where they’re sourced from, how the animals are treated —"

“Ew, we asked for mayorly gossip, not the offals from your day job!” David protests, trying to cover his ears without upsetting the whiskey bottle he’s now holding.

“Maybe _I_ should convert the motel into a hamburger restaurant!” Stevie says wildly. “I could knock down the front and back walls of each room and have, like, a motel drive-in restaurant.”

“That is an option,” Patrick says diplomatically. David shoots him a look and gets a little thigh nudge in response.

“You have, like, _so_ many options ahead of you, really.” David bumps her nose with the whiskey but pulls it back before she can grab it; he’s escorted enough wasted friends home to know when someone needs to be cut off.

“But literally all of those options trap me here forever,” Stevie sighs, drooping morosely again like she’s been doing all day. David really doesn’t know what to do with it; he’s used to her steadfastly hiding any emotions she has. It’s a style that normally works for the both of them. Neither of them traffic in the love language of words of affirmation. Okay, he’d leaned into it a bit today, but it had been an extreme and rare case, and Stevie had needed it. _“You’ve_ seen how hard it is to sell this town; no one’s ever going to want to buy the motel, so I’ll be stuck with it for the rest of my life, watching guests who can actually _go_ somewhere parade by me, flaunting their freedom.”

David glances at Patrick with wide eyes.

“So, no exciting mayorly gossip,” Patrick says, a little too loud, whiskey strong on his breath, and David has to cover his mouth to keep in a giggle. “But I _do_ have this fancy necklace that I get to wear for official ceremonies sometimes. It makes me feel like the Queen of England.”

Stevie gasps while David coos, “Cute!”

“I always forget about that thing. Pictures, pictures,” Stevie demands, pawing at Patrick’s knee.

“Okay, gimme a sec.” He tilts into David slightly as he wriggles his phone out of his pocket; he has a whole open space next to him he could’ve leaned into, which is why David doesn’t budge but lets him press against him. It’s a protest of sorts. “I think Jocelyn took some pictures when I spoke at Career Day at the school —"

“She let you do that even though you unseated her husband?” David asks, surprised.

“Unseated her husband sounds dirty,” Stevie snickers.

“Yeah, Jocelyn was frosty towards me for about one day after the election before she started asking me over for dinner again,” Patrick shrugs as he hands Stevie his phone with the picture in question.

“Well, you’re not dead yet, so she’s probably not poisoning you.” Patrick’s grin flashes at him in the dark before David busies himself looking at the photo as well. “Ooh, this looks like something my mom would wear. Like, never let her _just hold it for a second_ or _borrow it for the evening_ because you will get a fake back, if you get anything back at all.”

**Four**  
“David, what is this?” his dad asks as David shepherds him and Alexis into the motel lobby, where Patrick and Stevie are already waiting. “I was finally going to fix that drip in your bathroom.”

“Yes, and Alexis and I are _so_ grateful, but I think it’ll still be there when we’re done. And this will only take a minute. I mean, not really, but. That feels like something I should say. Also, I brought some pastries from the cafe, so, make yourselves comfortable.”

“Um, these look like day-olds.” Alexis perches on the couch next to Stevie and pokes at one of the muffins.

“I think they’re _two-day-olds,_ actually. Here, Dad, let me grab you a chair —"

“David, what are we doing here?” Stevie demands.

“I am doing you all a favor, okay?” he says breezily. He’s trying to project ease and confidence so they’ll go into this with the right mindset. “Okay, maybe I’m really just doing _Stevie_ a favor, and then all of _you_ are also doing Stevie a favor. Not really a favor, I guess, since you’d be paid for it — or not!” he rushes to say, off the panic on Stevie’s face. “Maybe. Something to consider.”

“Stevie, are you in trouble?” he hears Patrick ask Stevie in a low aside.

“I don’t _think_ so, though David’s making me nervous,” she grumbles back.

“Okay!” David says, a little too loud, and they all look up at him. “As you all know, Stevie’s Aunt Maureen recently left her this motel. As you all _also_ know, this motel has some, um, limitations, shall we say? That make it a bit of a —"

“Financial burden dragging me to an early grave,” Stevie finishes for him.

“Mmm, babe, we need to work on that marketing pitch,” Alexis whispers.

“Yes, exactly, Alexis,” David nods. “That’s why you’re all here. I think the three of you could help Stevie make this place something — okay, great might be a strong word, but palatable? Could we say palatable?”

“Palatable is a reach, but —"

Johnny shifts in his seat to face Stevie. “What kind of help are we talking about, Stevie?”

“Well —" She stops as David starts to tiptoe towards the door. “What, you’re just throwing me into this and leaving, David?”

“I am,” he winces. “Mom said the drip was, and I quote, going to make her battier than Adam West as the caped crusader in the 1960s series, so — I’m going to take her to lunch. You’ll be fine. Have fun!”

Four voices call his name but he shuts the door and power-walks away.

He’s just leaving the cafe an hour or so later when his phone buzzes with a few texts all at once.

**iMessage:** CEO of Rose Video   
  
**Johnny:** Son, you may have a nose for business opportunities after all!   
  
**Johnny:** Guess it’s a good thing you got that plastic surgery when you were 13! Ha ha!   
  


**iMessage:** Moisturizer Thief 🖕   
  
**Alexis:** k david idk how you expect me to have time for this AND school   
  
**Alexis:** like this place needs SO much work   
  
**Alexis:** but i’m already brainstorming cute little team uniforms   
  
**Alexis:** so i’ll figure that out first and then deal with the whole having time for it thing   
  


**iMessage:** Mr Mayor   
  
**Patrick:** You’re a good person, David Rose.   
  


He rolls his eyes at Patrick’s text.

**David:** This may be shocking news to you, but keeping three of the four people in that meeting busy and fulfilled will actually take a big burden off MY back, so   
  
**Patrick:** Ah, right.   
  
**Patrick:** I’m glad my busyness and fulfillment aren’t a concern to you.   
  
**David:** Well   
  


David glances at his mom, who’s chattering away as they meander down the sidewalk back to the motel.

**David:** I figure you can take care of yourself, probably. Since you take care of this town   
  
**Patrick:** And you take care of your family, David. Hence: good person.   
  
**David:** Shhhhhh   
  


**Five**

**iMessage:** Mr Mayor   
  
**Patrick:** Hey David, quick question   
  


It’s late, David is exhausted from keeping up with his mother’s dramatics, and he’d been about to plug in his phone and turn off the light, but Patrick’s text interrupts the plan.

**David:** yeah   
  
**Patrick:** Are you or your mother planning to undertake any fully or partially nude businesses anytime soon? Because I’ve noticed that’s a trend in your family, and I’m just trying to prepare myself   
  


“What the fuck?” he mutters. Alexis pokes her head out of the bathroom but he waves her away.

**David:** I’m sorry, what?    
  
**Patrick:** Well, earlier today I had to ask your father to no longer host an unregistered sex work enterprise at the motel   
  


_“What?”_ David gasps. His dad’s already in bed but he shoots off a text to Stevie.

**Patrick:** And I’m sure you’ve seen the vet office webcam   
  
**Patrick:** Which I did not watch, because I am Ted’s mayor and friend   
  
**Patrick:** Though if I HAD watched it, I’d say he looked great. 

David grins to himself and settles back against the pillows.

**David:** The bunnies were really tastefully positioned   
  
**Patrick:** They were   
  
**Patrick:** So between your dad and your sister, I was just wondering if this is a thing that your family does that I should anticipate   
  
**David:** That’s probably a good idea   
  
**David:** I’m headed to the Dude Cave for my first shift tomorrow   
  
**Patrick:** As a line cook, or...?   
  
**David:** Ha ha   
  
**Patrick:** They actually have some of the best health and safety ratings in the county   
  
**Patrick:** There are far worse places you could work   
  
**David:** Oh   
  
**David:** Good for them, I guess?    
  
**David:** Though now I’m concerned about the other businesses in this county    
  
**David:** What about Bazongas? I might visit them on my lunch breaks   
  
**Patrick:** I can look up their ratings in the morning and send them your way.    
  
**David:** As for my mom, no plans that I know of, unless this movie she’s auditioning for changes significantly in rewrites   
  
**David:** Though she did make me look for nude photos of her last year

He’s not sure why he’s telling Patrick this. Their family has so much dirty laundry that no one needs to know. Maybe it helps that Patrick already knows so much of it. Maybe it just helps that it’s Patrick.

**Patrick:** Wow   
  
**Patrick:** That’s a unique familial bonding experience   
  
**David:** Fortunately didn’t find any   
  
**David:** But it was a harrowing ten minutes   
  
**Patrick:** Alright, well, if anything changes, just make sure you file the proper paperwork   
  
**Patrick:** We’re the town where everyone fits in, but we still have rules   
  
**Patrick:** Good night, David   
  
**David:** Good night, Patrick.   
  


He’s gotten a response from Stevie in the meantime: sixteen crying-laughing emojis and a gif from some reality dating show with the subtitle This was the best day of my life.

**Six**  
Patrick jogs over to him after the game is done, pulling off his glove so he can wave as he approaches. “David! I didn’t realize you were coming.”

David shrugs, suddenly feeling vulnerable, somehow, for being here. Patrick’s the one in the skin-tight pants but he feels too exposed. Stevie had bailed on him at the last minute; they’d planned to eat all the junky snacks they could buy at the general store and sneak in wine coolers rebottled in innocuous-looking containers, and he’d felt weird doing that by himself, so he’s just been sitting here, on the bleachers, alone, watching Patrick play. Which is probably only marginally less weird. “I’m unemployed and rapidly running out of things to do. They finally paved Route 13 and the library has, like, two books.”

“Well, I appreciate your support.” Patrick takes a long chug from the water bottle a teammate hands him and David looks away.

“Actually, I was here to support Bob?”

“Ah. Let me flag him down for you —"

“Oh my god, don’t you dare,” David hisses, snatching Patrick’s already-gesticulating hand out of the air. “Are you _that_ needy that you _have_ to make me say that I came here for you?”

“Yeah, I might be,” Patrick admits, easily, unabashed. David rolls his eyes but feels a pleased warmth shimmy up inside his chest and try to form into a smile.

“Um, are you going to Twyla’s party tonight?” David asks as they start to walk back towards town together.

“The murder mystery party, right? Wouldn’t miss it. I know everyone’s dying to say ‘The mayor did it!’ I was the murderer the last two years,” he explains. “I would take it personally if it were anyone but Twyla.”

“That’s fair,” David chuckles.

“Don’t tell me _you’re_ going?”

“Alright, I resent your tone, and I will have you know that I am a social butterfly when the opportunity presents itself,” David sniffs. “Also, have I mentioned I’m unemployed and bored? _And_ my mother might have said something about appetizers.”

“Then I will see you there,” Patrick says as they come to a halt outside of Ray’s. He lifts up the brim of his baseball hat to wipe his brow. “I’ll be the one dressed as a nutty professor.”

“Oh god. If you’re the murderer again, can you kill me first?”

**Seven**  
David storms into town hall, his overpant fabric flapping and his entire person riled up.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” he demands of Patrick the moment the council desks come into view.

Patrick rises hastily from his chair, knocking a stapler to the floor in the process. David’s mother isn’t here, obviously, since he’s just left her at the motel in the settling dust of this revelation, but Ronnie and Bob watch on with rounded eyes.

“What’d he do, David?” Ronnie asks, equal parts amused and concerned.

David flings out an arm to gesture accusingly at the fugly Christmas tree still gloating there in the middle of the room. He sees Patrick’s jaw clench, sees it clearly because he’s glaring at him. “You _recused_ yourself from the general store vote, _knowing_ that with my mom’s vote being what it was, that _confirmed_ the store would go to Christmas World!”

Patrick comes out from behind his desk and moves towards David, putting out a placating hand. “David, could we talk about this without an audience?”

“Why?” David snaps. “It was a _council decision,_ why can’t you talk about it in front of council?”

“Yeah, why is that, Brewer?” Ronnie calls.

“Very helpful, Ronnie, as ever,” Patrick mutters. He leans in, and he’s avoiding David’s gaze; it frees David up to study Patrick’s fine little eyelashes, but it’s unsettling too. “Please, David, I’d rather it — just be us.”

David sniffs, but he nods jerkily. He’s riding the high of a powerful righteous indignation; the second it collapses he’s liable to start weeping, and he definitely doesn’t need Bob there for that. Ronnie he can at least trust to keep her mouth shut.

Patrick shows him out to the back of town hall, past the closet where they store the chairs and the space they use as a green room for performance nights. David’s never been back here before, and he blinks with curiosity as they emerge onto a little patch of concrete next to a verdant explosion of trees and jewelweed and Queen Anne’s lace and other flowers he recognizes from a brief and ill-advised fling with Thiago, who’d been a real nature buff. He thinks he even hears the town’s eponymous creek nearby.

“This is nice,” he says, forgetting he’s still mad at Patrick. “In a tragic indie film kind of way.”

“Yeah,” Patrick chuckles, and he leans over so can brush the top of a flower with his fingertips, the plant wobbling delicately back into place in his wake. “I think past councillors used this for secret smoke breaks when they didn’t want to face the townspeople out front. Now it’s just a multipurpose breather spot.”

David’s loathe to break this moment, but he risks losing steam, which could bring on the weeping earlier than he’d planned. He twists to make sure Bob hasn’t crept into the hallway to eavesdrop — he does _not_ trust that man — and tries to bring them back to topic. “So, what is it? First you refused to endorse my mom for council, now you recuse yourself from a vote that could have _changed my life?”_ Patrick’s frowning, and David hates it, but he plows on, “Do you hate me and my family, or just me, specifically?”

Patrick huffs around a half-hearted smile. He leans back against the railing beside the quasi-patio and does that not-quite-meeting-David’s-eyes thing again, but only for a moment; then he does meet his gaze, and the light is dappled through the trees and Patrick’s eyes and hair look especially gold-tinted. “I don’t hate you, David, or your family. Quite the opposite, actually.”

There’s a resignation to his tone that David doesn’t understand. “Then why the fuck do you keep doing this to me? I _trusted_ you with my ideas about the store! Were you planning to vote against me all along?”

“I didn’t vote against you,” Patrick reminds him testily. “I recused myself. I chose not to participate in the vote. It was Bob and your mom who voted against you.”

“Mm, thank you for _that_ reminder of another betrayal that I have to now live with.”

“I didn’t betray you, David,” Patrick insists, and he seems to be grappling with how much to say. David should know; he’s seen his mom do that way too many times this week, with her revelations first about his galleries and then about the Christmas World vote. “I had to take myself out of the vote, just like I couldn’t endorse anyone for council, because it felt inappropriate to show favoritism.”

“Favoritism to the better candidate? Favoritism to one of your _citizens_ over a giant gross corporation?!”

“Favoritism to _you,”_ Patrick says, suddenly loud, suddenly firm. “To _you,_ David. Even if I thought your mother was the best candidate and even though I _know_ your store could be transformative for this town, I can’t act on either of those beliefs because the real motivations behind my actions would be how I feel about you.”

David blinks, and clears his throat, and waits for this to process. “How you...feel about me?”

“I’ve tried to be discreet,” Patrick confesses, because that’s what this is, a confession, and the concrete under David’s feet feels very insubstantial. “For your sake, and because I don’t know how — I wouldn’t know how to navigate that, when I’m the mayor — but I don’t think I’ve fooled anyone, and I suspect the second I make an official decision or pronouncement that specifically benefits you or your family, someone would throw that back in my face. That I’m doing it for you.”

“I’m sorry,” David says, still trying to catch up. “How — how exactly do you feel about me? Because if you’ll recall, I came here fairly convinced you hate me, so —"

Patrick chuckles, and it shouldn’t warm David to his fingertips, but it does, it _does._ “I like you, David,” Patrick tells him, not hiding now, meeting his gaze with a blush but a steady certainty. “More than friends like each other. More than I — more than I know how to deal with, sometimes.”

“Oh,” David says faintly, nodding.

“Yeah,” Patrick sighs. “And I apologize if that makes you uncomfortable, or if you want to hold a discussion with council about —"

“Ew, no,” David says quickly, “I do not need to talk to council about this. Um, and it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. It makes me —" Patrick’s hanging on his every word now, transparent brows furrowed, lips slightly parted. “I can see why you felt you couldn’t participate in the vote,” he goes on carefully. “Um, it still sucks, obviously, because I had kind of gotten _real_ deep into my vision-boarding, but. Um. Knowing that you like me, like, _like_ me like me, that — that helps.”

Patrick’s face seems to unfurl into a little smile. “That helps?”

“Mhm,” David hums, nodding, smiling too. “I am not opposed — I would be amenable to —"

“David! Mayor Pat!”

It’s his mother, of all people.

“May we confabulate a moment, my dears?” Moira asks, leaning out the doorway, but just a touch, as if she fears the sunlight. (Vampire rumors followed them long before she did that Syfy made-for-TV movie.) “There’s been a change in my cardiac persuasion as pertains to the fate of the town’s little general store.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Patrick asks in an undertone, touching David’s wrist.

“Yeah. Yes,” David nods, his voice a couple octaves higher than usual; he can feel Patrick’s fingerprints on his skin but also, somehow, everywhere else, his ribs, his heart.

**Eight**  
“Have you decided on a name yet?”

David groans and wonders again why Patrick thinks they can’t drink their way through this business meeting. “No, I’m still oscillating.”

“Uh-huh.” Patrick clicks his pen, an annoying little habit David’s starting to think he does when he recognizes he’s not getting any answers from David anytime soon. “And I respect your process, David, but I’m going to need to write something on this form.”

“You can’t just put — Untitled David Rose Project?”

“I could, but knowing the way things tend to happen in bureaucracy, that’s the phrase that would end up on your business license, and then you’d be stuck filing taxes under Untitled David Rose Project for the rest of your business’s existence.”

“Ooh, you think it’ll last long enough to require filing taxes! Your confidence in me is staggering. Also, I _will_ be needing your assistance with filing those taxes, and I feel I should give you fair warning that given my personal tax-related trauma, I’m liable to be _very_ unhelpful.”

Patrick grins and nudges him under the table. They’re poring over David’s incorporation papers and other business initiation requirements at the little table in his and Alexis’s room, and it feels like they’re on a date with chaperones. It’s not a date, it can’t be a date because they haven’t had a chance to finish the conversation they started behind town hall, but it feels vaguely date-like, except that various other members of the family have been flitting in and out of the rooms throughout their meeting — he thinks his mom is manning the front desk, and Alexis has been accused of cheating, though for once that’s not a relationship thing.

Everyone has thoughts about David’s business, even his mother, who’d been so set against it. He will be taking _none_ of their ideas. Okay, he will be taking Patrick’s ideas, because Patrick studied this, and also because he’s smart and patient and level-headed and he could probably make glasses and a pocket protector look very cute, so David feels he can trust him with this. Patrick had recused himself from involvement as the mayor but is up to his elbows assisting David in his business consultancy capacity.

“We’ll just skip the name for now,” Patrick suggests. “Give you more time to...oscillate.”

_“Okay.”_

“Alright, what about a description of the business?”

David just looks at him. “I’ve told you, like, sixteen times what the business is. Can’t you just — fill that in?”

“I could,” Patrick says patiently, “and I’m happy to try, but it just seems...important to you? Given how much time you’ve spent anguishing over it, and then spilling your anguish all over me.”

“That’s a visual _no one_ needed.” David pouts and slides down a bit in his chair. “Aren’t there any easier questions on this form?”

Patrick clicks his pen once and sets it down. David watches it rock back and forth briefly on the table, wondering if he’s pushed Patrick too far this time.

“So, as your business consultant, I wouldn’t normally dig into this,” Patrick says, “but it seems like you’re struggling a bit in terms of moving your passion and your ideas into the realm of tangible progress.”

“You sound like every tutor I’ve ever had,” David mutters.

“I’m just wondering,” Patrick laughs, “if there’s something blocking you from...feeling like you can fully realize this vision.”

“You think?” David says snippily, without thinking, because he hasn’t told Patrick most of the messy stuff that he’s dragging with him into this business venture. “Ugh. Sorry. It’s not — I mean, you already know the stuff with my mom trying to undermine my application for the lease, and it turned out that was rooted in a whole misguided protecting me slash not believing in me thing? But that’s only — that’s really only the start of it.”

Patrick laces his hands together on top of the paperwork, considering David for a moment before saying carefully, “I obviously can’t make you believe in yourself or this business, though for the record I think you should, because it’s a great idea and you’re the right person to execute it. But as far as other people believing in you... I mean, _I’ve_ told you I think it’s a great idea, and _Stevie’s_ told you, and you know how allergic she is to sincerity. Like, it looked like it hurt her _so much_ when she said that to you.”

“It really did.” David grins at the memory.

“And I know you’ve already been talking to vendors and thinking about a launch date, but we don’t have to.... Nothing you write today has to go any further. We can fill out this form and never submit it. Or you can submit it and change your mind.”

“I’m still paying to lease the space, though,” David says doubtfully.

“That’s true,” Patrick acknowledges, “but you can always break the lease, or sublet, or use it as an event space until you’re ready to move to the next step. I imagine there’s a...a certain sense of urgency, that comes with the excitement of making this thing happen. But _you’re_ in control, David. We’re doing this on your terms.”

David frowns. He’s been expecting a lecture — he’s been petulant and resistant and unhelpful and squirmy — but this is not at all the tone he’d been bracing for.

Before he can respond, there’s a knock on the door and Stevie enters without waiting to be let in.

“Oh, hey, Patrick,” she says, seemingly not surprised to see him there. “David, I found _this_ under the bed in room two, if you need a break.”

“Ooh, yes please,” he gushes, out of his chair and across the room before he feels the rush of guilt. “Um —" He turns back to Patrick, who’s looking amused and frustrated all at once. “Okay, firstly, Rose Apothecary. For the name.”

Stevie snorts. “Pretentious.”

Patrick grins and clicks his pen back out. “I like it.”

“Um, also, would you like to partake? We have a good spot out behind the motel.”

Patrick hesitates, then gathers the papers up and levels them against the table. “Okay, but Stevie and I aren’t sharing the joint with you until you give me a description of the business.”

“Ooh, I like that,” Stevie hums.

“What?!” David squawks, watching them stride out of the room together. “I thought we were doing this at _my_ pace!”

**Nine**  
“Are you _sure_ Bob can’t go instead?” David asks nervously.

Patrick shifts the last of Moira’s bags into the trunk of his car and shuts it, smiling at David all the while. “Bob’s not the mayor, David.”

“Oh my god, _imagine?_ No, I meant, like, instead of —" He gestures vaguely behind him; if he says any variation of my mother or _Moira,_ she’ll hear; she has ears like a TMZ informant.

Patrick crosses his arms and leans his hip against the car; it really accents the fit of his jeans across his pelvis, a fact of which David is starting to suspect Patrick is well aware. “Do you not want your mother to go to RAMC?”

“It’s just —" Patrick’s got that look on like he knows exactly the convoluted mental rabbit warrens David’s burrowed himself into, but he’s going to force him to vocalize it. “It’s just a very long time for you to spend together? For you, specifically, to spend with my mother, specifically. The ride is, like, what, forty-five minutes each way?!”

“An hour fifteen,” Patrick corrects.

“Oh god. And do you think —" David swallows. “So in that time, do you think you’ll put the radio on, or discuss your plan of action for the conference, or discuss — discuss other topics —"

“David,” Patrick says, and he steps right up to him, squeezes his arms, and David braces himself for whatever he’s about to say, something simultaneously comforting and sassy. “After the car ride, we’ll have another twenty-six hours to spend together. And then _another_ car ride, when the conference is over.”

Okay, so not comforting, then. “What if your car breaks down again?” he demands, a little louder; maybe he can convince his mom to bail through unsubtle aspersions of potential doom. “Is a little regional conference worth that risk?”

The door to room 6 opens, and Patrick releases him, steps back respectfully to the driver’s side door of the car as Moira and Johnny issue onto the sidewalk. “All set, Mayor Pat?” Moira calls, beaming, unlikely to be deterred by David’s manipulations.

“Ready when you are, Mrs. Rose.” Patrick shakes Johnny’s hand and opens the car door, gets one leg in before he turns back to David. “Which one of us are you worried about, David?”

“It’s — it’s the combination,” he admits.

“RAMC won’t know what hit them!” Johnny laughs, patting David on the back, presuming — incorrectly — to know what they’re talking about, as usual.

Patrick laughs too, wholesome and parent-friendly and undoubtedly set on mining Moira for all kinds of salacious David content throughout the course of the next day. “See you both tomorrow,” Patrick says, and he _winks._

Five minutes later, David gets a text from his mother: **Dearest David, do you have any pictorial records from our vacation in Malé? The mayor is desirous of fettering a visual to the tales with which I am regaling him!**

“Oh god,” he whispers.

**iMessage:** Mother 🌹   
  
**David:** mom i was 13 i do not have pictures   
  
**Moira:** Diffidence doesn’t flatter, David. Surely you were diligently snapping away on your cameraphone?   
  
**David:** it was 1996   
  
**David:** i didn’t have a cameraphone   
  
**David:** no one had a cameraphone   
  
**David:** cameraphones didn’t exist   
  
**David:** because it was 1996   
  
**David:** also i hate that you made me call it a cameraphone   
  


He’s several minutes into an internet deep-dive on the history of smartphones when he realizes that oh god, now she’s going to tell Patrick how old David is, which he’s been trying very hard to keep private. There’s a non-zero chance she hadn’t actually known his age until now; he’d walked right into that. He texts Patrick, **don’t listen to a word she says.**

He doesn’t hear from either of them for several long, itchy hours, and then Patrick just sends him a picture of one of those _Hi my name is_ stickers; he’s written PATRICK in all caps, and then _Mayor, Schitt’s Creek,_ squeezed in at the bottom. David makes it the contact photo for Patrick in his phone; he’d rather have an actual picture of Patrick’s actual face, so that he could pull it up and just — look at it, when he wants to, when he’s missing Patrick, like now, but he’s not sure they’re there, in their — friendship.

**iMessage:** Mr Mayor   
  
**David:** i’m sorry, who is this?    
  
**Patrick:** Your mom wouldn’t wear the sticker.   
  
**David:** and this is a surprise to whom, exactly?    
  
**Patrick:** I offered her a lanyard.    
  


David laughs out loud and is so glad no one’s there to witness it.

**David:** and how’d that go over?   
  


In response, he gets a very unexciting picture of a lanyard, its plastic card-holder empty, draped over what is apparently Patrick’s leg; he can just see the edge of his mother’s dress at the side of the shot. So they’re sitting next to each other during their first panel. That’s fine, because they won’t be able to talk, since someone else will presumably be presenting. Though now that he thinks about it, that’s never stopped his mother before.

He spends so long zooming in on the photo — he’s had to amend his assessment of it as _unexciting;_ there’s a lot to appreciate in the stretch of Patrick’s jeans over his thigh and knee — that he gets another text before he’s responded.

**Patrick:** Your mom’s up next.   
  


Patrick’s been helping Moira rehearse her speech for a week — not that she knew that’s what was happening. Under advisement from David and Alexis, Patrick had asked if they could run through the speech several times, “just so I can get the PowerPoint slides right”, he’d claimed. Moira had graciously acquiesced, and if David has to hear his ... _Patrick,_ has to hear Patrick praise David’s mother one more time for her “highly clarifying analysis of the limitations of the existing municipal funding structure”, he might have to revisit stealing Roland’s truck.

**David:** shouldn’t you be taking notes instead of texting me?   
  
**David:** tell me how it goes?    
  
**Patrick:** 👍 Don’t worry. She’s good at this.   
  


\--which many people have said about his mother, but none with the sincerity that even Patrick’s very bland texting conveys.

He’s distracted from his anxious nail-chewing for forty minutes or so by a delivery of product and the requisite inventory, labeling, and set-up; he knows that’s long enough for his mom to have finished her speech, but when he checks there are no new messages. If things have somehow gone poorly, he wonders if Patrick will ask them all to leave town, too traumatized after a rough afternoon spent consoling a distraught Moira in a Thornbridge hotel bathroom to let the Roses remain in Schitt’s Creek.

The next he hears from them, he’s at the cafe with Alexis and their dad, and he gets a selfie, a fucking _selfie,_ which Patrick must’ve known he’d hate — and he’d taken it from _below,_ which anyone who spends five minutes with Alexis knows is a selfie faux pas, it’s a _very_ unflattering angle for Patrick, and for Moira, who’s wedged in next to him. But they — they both look really happy, and they’re brandishing some ominously milky cocktail, and there’s a flush to Patrick’s cheeks that makes David warm too, in sympathy, or something.

“Ew, David, what are you smiling at?” Alexis demands, trying to lean over to look at his screen.

“Nothing,” he mutters, shielding it, even as Johnny sighs and asks them both, again, to put their phones away. He texts Patrick a single question mark.

**Patrick:** She’s a star, David.   
  
**Patrick:** STAR OF DAVID!   
  


“Okay,” he snorts.

**David:** are you drunk? are you seriously drunk-texting me from a local govt conference? are you drunk with my MOTHER?    
  
**Patrick:** Wish you were here.    
  


“Oh my god, either stop doing that with your face or share with the class!” Alexis insists.

 **i don’t** , he sends, because he doesn’t; the liquor’s probably cheap, they probably have bowls of nuts and no _actual_ snacks, and a roomful of people who care enough about their municipalities to spend a day at RAMC is very decisively not David’s crowd. With, like, an exception or two. **wish YOU were HERE**.

Patrick responds with the emoji with stars in its eyes, which is marginally better than one with heart eyes, but David still clears his throat and hastily pockets his phone.

David ignores Patrick’s calls for a full twenty-four hours after RAMC before he misreads the caller ID, thinking it’s Ramik, one of his prospective vendors, and answers too quickly.

“Hi,” Patrick says, all patient, like this is fine.

“I’m not speaking to you,” David informs him, but he doesn’t hang up.

“Oh really?”

“Yes really.” David slides his book onto his nightstand; he’s not talking to Patrick but he doesn’t have to be _rude_ about it by not focusing. “I had to hear from _Jocelyn_ that you and my mother had _slept together.”_

Patrick laughs, big and bright, and David wants to punch a pillow with how much he likes it. “Aww, I’m so sorry, David.”

“And no one was going to explain to me that that _didn’t_ mean what it sounds like. Even my mother was pouring beer down the drain last night! She said she was horrified she’d almost debauched you. _I had to listen to that with my own ears.”_

“Did you even, for a second, think I had slept with your mother? And I mean had sex with her, before you play semantics with me.”

“I’ve been cheated on with my sister, and I’ve helped people cheat on my sister, but my _mother?_ That’s a new low.”

“Can I cheat on someone I’ve only said I liked and who said he liked me? Last I checked that’s all we were to each other.”

David opens his mouth to press this line, to finally force the issue, then grits his teeth in a fake smile as Alexis sweeps in the front door, her hair glistening from the rain outside. Great, so he and Patrick _aren’t_ actually going to have this conversation tonight.

“Can we go back to not speaking to each other?” he asks. “I liked that, too.”

“Whatever you want, David,” Patrick says easily.

“Okay, I’m going to bed now.”

“Say hi to your mom from me!”

“You’re dead to me,” he tells the phone, and he only stays up to text Patrick for another fifteen minutes. Basically the cold shoulder.

**Ten**  
David really hadn’t planned to involve anyone else in the hellstorm that is Sebastien, but he runs into Patrick outside the cafe and Patrick’s somehow already heard everything from Ray who’d talked to Jocelyn who’d apparently heard it from Moira, and David doesn’t have time to think about his mother confiding about all of this in her former political rival, unless it was a bragging thing, which he can kind of understand more, though here he is, talking about all of it to Patrick, whom he’d decided pretty early on he disliked, and now — Well, they still haven’t had a chance to talk about it yet. They definitely don’t dislike each other. He realizes he’s staring at Patrick a little too intensely and that’s only, like, 43% because he’s talking.

“I have an idea,” Patrick says slowly, “and it’s probably a bad one, and it might take some agency away from your mom, but this guy sounds like a dick.”

“Oh, he’s very much a dick,” David nods. Damn Twyla and her unnecessary curtainage of the cafe; he can’t see how deeply ensnared his mother already is in Sebastien’s clutches. “And I can say with absolute certainty that he’s intent on taking _a lot_ of agency away from my mom, so if your idea involves taking a small amount of agency away from her in order to stop whatever plot _he’s_ got spinning, then honestly, I’m in.”

“Alright.” Patrick hands David his padfolio and, of all things, reaches up to muss up his own hair a little, as much as that short cut can be mussed. Then he undoes _two more buttons_ on his shirt, which had already been practically flapping in the wind. “Can I borrow your sunglasses?”

“Oh god,” David whispers, but he hands them over, and Patrick slides them into the enticing v of his open shirt.

“I used to do impressions as a party trick,” Patrick announces just as he opens the door to the cafe, and oh no, what has David done?

Patrick doesn’t bother with his usual wave and chit-chat for Twyla and anyone at all sitting around in the cafe (he’s so social it makes David break out in an anxious sweat), instead striding right to the table over which Sebastien and Moira are sipping tea and tittering away. Sebastien doesn’t really _titter,_ but that’s definitely what his mom is doing, all needy and off-balance like David always felt with Sebastien.

“Moira,” Patrick says, and she looks up in surprise. “Sorry I’m late.” He thrusts his hand across the table at Sebastien. “Pat Brewer. I’m Moira’s agent. I got caught up in another negotiation, but since you’ve already had a chance to catch up, let’s get down to business, shall we?”

David, who’s not sure if he’s supposed to be here and decides to hide in the corner behind the patrons sitting at the bar, will be putting Sebastien’s startled expression in his gratitude journal every day for the next year.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you had engaged representation,” Sebastien eventually drawls.

“I —" Moira blinks at Patrick.

“Don’t worry, it’ll just be standard stuff. Moira knows you’re not in a position to meet her usual rate, but we were thinking —" Patrick glances in David’s direction, and David holds up seven fingers. “Seven thousand a day, plus a predetermined fraction of the profits from any sale or exhibit you undertake.”

David covers his face with his hands. That’s not what he’d meant at all, but, sure.

“Seven thou —" Sebastien splutters then laughs, recovering. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m here to lay some groundwork with Moira. We won’t begin the _real_ work for some time.”

“And what time would that be, exactly?” Patrick asks sharply. “And where?”

“I would propose the Giardini Papadopoli in spring—” Moira suggests brightly.

“The muse doesn’t bend to pithy notions of _when_ and _where,”_ Sebastien says dismissively. “And I won’t know until Moira and I are out there, among the flotsam and jetsam of provincial life —"

“I see. The problem, you understand, Mr. Raine —" And David doesn’t remember if he’d told Patrick that Sebastien hates being called Mr. Raine or if Patrick’s just got a gut for these things, but Sebastien’s lips go all predictably thin and bloodless. “Your muse may not bend to those notions, but it’s going to need to bend to Moira Rose, or we can find someone more willing to work on our terms.”

“Patrick, dear,” Moira says, sounding slightly panicked, probably seeing a chance at a fancy photoshoot slipping away, “maybe we should —"

“I’m doing you a _favor,”_ Sebastien hisses, and David’s elbow slips from the counter. “You think _I_ should pay _her?”_

David’s mother is facing away from him, but he sees her spine straighten, her shoulders press back; it’s a posture she perfected playing a corrupt lawyer for a season on _Miami Vice_ in the late 80s. David had loved watching her get into character.

“Regrettably, it seems there _has_ been a misapprehension, Sebastien,” Moira pronounces, her voice carrying. “And as my agent has made abundantly pellucid, we cannot proceed without certain troths which you seem unprepared to make. As such —" She gathers her bag from the floor and Patrick is already ready, extending his arm for her to take. “Adieu, Sebastien, and may your muse lead you true. I know mine has.”

David gathers his chin off the counter in time to catch them outside, starting their way across the road to the store.

“David!” his mother cries, turning when they hear his hurried footsteps approaching. “Oh, David, I nearly did a terrible thing, but sweet Pat delivered me from my own damnation!”

“Isn’t that sweet of Pat,” David smirks.

“Actually, Pat was just the role I was playing, but, uh, I’m glad it worked out, Mrs. Rose,” Patrick grins, handing David his sunglasses, and David’s enjoyed the last ten minutes more than he’d thought possible but he’s glad to have Patrick back, with his unswaggering confidence and his gentle voice.

“Mom, do you want me to walk you back to the motel?” David’s not entirely sure she wouldn’t slip right back into Sebastien’s clutches, should he waylay her somewhere alone.

“Thank you, dear, but John sent me a worrisome textual message about a poker game, so I shall go find _him_ and make _him_ my protector,” she assures him.

David rolls his eyes. “You don’t need a protector.”

Moira pats his arm and winks. “But your father doesn’t need to know that.”

As she saunters away, David wrinkles up his nose. “I don’t know whether that was sweet or slightly disturbing.” He shakes himself and digs in his pocket for his keys. “Um, I was on my way to the store before _that_ whole thing started happening, if you want to —"

Patrick follows him in, looking around at all the product and the pieces David’s been collecting from flea markets and antique shops and yard sales to fill out the store’s tasteful decorations. David wants to watch him, wants to preen under the pleased, intrigued way Patrick takes it all in and picks up a piece now and then to look closer, but he’s trying to be patient about this... _this_ between them, and watching Patrick admire his store is liable to make him do something stupid.

“Um, so that was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen, and I was an extra in _Camp Rock,”_ he says instead.

Patrick grins, all teeth, and bobbles his head in mock-humility. “I’ve done some community theater. I don’t get to flex those theatrical muscles much anymore. Felt good.”

“You should be very proud of yourself. Many a born-and-bred New Yorker has withered under the manipulations of Sebastien Raine.”

“Really? I didn’t see the appeal,” Patrick says, and David could hold a two-hour presentation on why Sebastien’s particular brand of smarm and charm works on people like himself, but he likes that Patrick isn’t pulled in by that. Or if Patrick’s lying, if he’s pulled in by Sebastien but knows better than to tell David that, well, David likes that too.

This would be the perfect time to address Patrick’s recent... confessions, which they haven’t had time to discuss, which they keep somehow not talking about. But as they both look around the half-finished manifestation of some of David’s dreams, he finds himself saying instead, “I’m sorry he insulted your town. Like, over and over.”

Patrick’s lips twitch. “I’m used to it.”

David winces. “Often from me, for sure. I just — Hmm. I’ve been thinking about, um, when I stole Roland’s truck and you had to come pick me up, and how pissed you seemed? And I assume part of that was because there you were, rescuing someone who’d been _so_ hateful towards your town, had been _so_ desperate to leave that he’d undertaken grand theft auto, which — I can see why that would piss you off. And now that I have the store I can kind of... I get it, in a way. How deeply personal it feels, when you put your — your heart, or whatever, into something, and other people don’t see in it what you want them to see in it. Or something.”

Patrick’s studying him like he’d been studying the store a moment before, and it’s suddenly warm in here; that’s probably from the way the glass storefront amplifies the sunlight. Definitely that. Maybe Twyla had the right idea with those curtains. He should look into a tasteful drapery option for the store. He can’t afford those incredible Misti Thomas pieces they’d had at the gallery in New York, but —

“I hadn’t thought of it that way, actually. Your — escape attempt,” Patrick clarifies. “That’s not why I was — why I seemed —"

“Tetchy?” David suggests.

Patrick ducks his head. “That’s fair.”

“What, um.” David clears his throat. “What was it, then? That made you so tetchy, if not the disrespect to your town? If you — if you remember, I mean, it was, like, so long ago —"

“I was worried about you,” Patrick states, just like that. “I know we weren’t — close, but I was worried about you, and I didn’t handle that well.”

“Oh,” David says faintly.

“Yeah.” Patrick blows out a big exhale. “Which reminds me —"

They both jump a little as the front door opens; it’s Stevie, carrying a pizza box, and Alexis, gushing with questions about what happened at the cafe, “it’s all over town!”, and David could strangle them both, but — Patrick glances at him with a little conciliatory smile, and whatever this is, it’ll keep.

**Eleven**  
David stops at the open door to Patrick’s bedroom on his way back downstairs from Ray’s bathroom. (There’s only a half-bath on the ground floor, and he could work with that, but Patrick had been pretty insistent on showing him to the one up here.) “Um, thank you, again,” he says, tapping on the doorframe, “for letting me stay over.”

Patrick looks up from the book he’s reading with a little smile. He’s under the covers and everything already, so David can only see his sleep shirt, but it’s white and short-sleeved and there’s just a lot of arm he’s not yet familiar with. “You don’t have to keep thanking me, David. If you got lice and brought it to the cafe, it would be all over town.”

“Ah,” David nods, “this is, like, a mayorly thing you’re doing, offering me Ray’s couch. A way to protect your constituents from the lice.”

“You could put it that way, yeah,” Patrick chuckles. “But I do also feel like you’re owed a sleepover, since the one we started last year didn’t pan out.”

“Um, that was less a sleepover and more me running as far away as I could from Roland’s bizarre way of processing having a teeny lil fight with his wife, but. Sure.”

Patrick’s lips twitch, but he just says, “Good night, David. Let me know if you need anything else.”

David nods, and turns to go, but then — “Actually, can I ask you one more thing?”

“Of course,” Patrick says, and he pats the bed next to him, which — Oh god, David’s doing it, he’s crossing the room and he’s sitting on the edge of the very bed Patrick’s currently all cute and snuggly in. He should’ve stayed by the door; how can he stay even-keeled when he can still smell Patrick’s toothpaste on his breath?

The thing is, they haven’t had a chance to talk about it, about _liking each other,_ since the whole Christmas World thing. There’d been the excitement of David actually getting the store lease, and the chaos of trying to get everything into order, and Sebastien, and Patrick’s been dealing with something about making his reelection campaign official that David doesn’t really follow, and they keep getting interrupted. So they keep...just...not talking about it. He hopes Patrick hasn’t changed his mind in the interim.

“Um.” David traces the stitching of the quilt on Patrick’s bed. “Why didn’t you, um, ever say anything sooner?” he murmurs eventually, and when he looks up Patrick’s gaze flits shyly away. “About — about how you — about your feelings about — I know that you said you weren’t really sure how to navigate it, what with you being the mayor —"

Patrick is nodding, hands folded over his lap, and David wishes he could see what his pajama bottoms look like; are they plaid? They’re almost definitely blue plaid. “That was a big part of it, for sure,” Patrick confirms. His voice is something David absolutely cannot parse; it’s steady and businesslike as ever, but it’s also soft and personal, in this space, in this proximity. “It didn’t really help that you call me _Mr. Mayor_ at every opportunity.”

“I —" David twists his smile down and blushes. “Okay, that was partly me being a dick and partly, maybe, possibly, a weird way of flirting?”

“Yeah, I, uh, I’ve been wondering that,” Patrick admits, and he scratches his neck like he’s nervous, which, oh no, David likes that. “Since you said that you — that you liked that I like you, I’ve been kind of looking back at things, wondering if — if that was the case.”

David hums, because it’s safer than trusting his voice. When he can manage it, he says, “Sorry, if that made it, um, harder to, to say that you —"

“It’s fine,” Patrick assures him, and he reaches out halfway, his hand ending up on the bedspread next to David’s, two ridiculous, uncertain grown-adult-man hands on the overly sincere yellow floral quilt. “I liked it. I like it. I like that you tease me like that. And it wasn’t _just_ that. I...wasn’t sure that you...returned the feelings? And even when I suspected that you might, there always seemed to be something else — family stuff, council stuff...” It is not passing David by that Patrick hasn’t mentioned Stevie or Jake; it’s possible Patrick’s just not threatened by those relationships, but David suspects it’s more likely a matter of Patrick not believing David is the kind of person who would cheat, which is so not true, but Patrick thinks that, and what does it say that a person like Patrick thinks that about a person like David? “And now you’ve got the store —"

“What about the store?” David asks, thrown a little.

“The store is...” Patrick looks so at a loss for words that David assumes the worst before he finally says, “You’ve done something really meaningful, David. It’s a big deal, and not just for you — for the town. I wouldn’t want to endanger that. And before you say anything,” he pushes on, wisely, because David had been about to protest, “I know this sounds like a flimsy excuse, but I’ve never dated someone in town. I’ve dated a bit, as mayor, but always people from Elmdale or Bainbridge or just — a bit farther afield. I met a guy at the Wobbly Elm once and within ten minutes it seemed like everyone in town knew. And I just... I’m not sure that’s something that you want, and I’m not sure how hard it would be for either of us to navigate, and I don’t want figuring all that out to get in the way of you making sure your store gets the strong start it deserves.”

David smiles, hoping it doesn’t show the ache he’s feeling. “Look at us,” he chuckles weakly, “trying to figure out how to date as single parents. You with your town, me with my store.”

“Well,” Patrick smiles, voice sounding a little thick, “we have to prioritize our children.”

“Um, I actually hate kids? But.”

He studies the quilt again, hunting for loose threads he could pick at.

“David,” Patrick says softly.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Patrick’s hand inch across the covers. He lets it, lets him reach all the way, lets his own hand stay immobile until Patrick’s fingertips find his, until Patrick’s palm shields the back of his hand. It’s warm and safe under there, and he envies that damn hand.

“Okay, so,” he says, clearing his throat. “Everything you’ve said about my store is. Um. Possibly going to my head right now? But I just. The way I feel about you —"

Patrick’s hand clenches on his, and he has to look up, has to see the ineffable hope and nerves as Patrick studies him.

“I feel,” David tries again, wishing he had Patrick’s surefootedness or Stevie’s frankness or Twyla’s optimism but finding he has only this thrumming sensation in his chest, “you make me feel like the store makes me feel. In a — in a big way. In a big, good way.”

Patrick kindly ignores the potential jokes there, though his lips press together a bit.

“So while I respect and appreciate your best wishes for the store, I wonder if we could—” He stops himself from suggesting _we could make out until Ray comes home, and then make out some more with the lights off, under the covers, quiet so we don’t wake him, I can be quiet, just let me kiss you._ “Like, what if we gave it a few weeks, see how it goes with my soft launch, make sure I can get everything on its feet, and then — and then check back in?”

“David,” Patrick says, with something like wonder, “are you scheduling a follow-up appointment with me?”

“No,” David lies. “No, that’s — we both know _you’re_ the one who’s going to put in your phone calendar.”

“I will,” Patrick grins. “I’m gonna put it as _David Potentialities Eval.”_

“Gross,” David says helplessly. He hopes Patrick will text him a screenshot when he does.

They smile stupidly at each other for a moment, still holding hands, and it’s only when Ray gets in downstairs and a little gust of night air wafts up the stairs and into the room that David shivers and releases his grip, bringing both hands up to rub his bare arms.

“Do you want more blankets for the couch?” Patrick offers, hand already on the edge of the covers to throw them off and get up.

“No, I —" The idea is definitely mostly driven by the thought of spending the night on Ray’s well-worn couch. Totally that and not, like, the chance to satisfy a question he’s wondered in his daydreams. “Um. Do you think it’s within the parameters of two people who have expressed feelings for each other but are not yet dating to, um, snuggle?” He hates the word as soon as he’s said it, but cuddle wouldn’t be better, or spoon; how has no one invented a word to describe the act that doesn’t debase the speaker in its use?

But Patrick’s face has gone all big and rounded in every way, round eyes and round little smile that pushes up his round cheeks. He probably loves words like _snuggle_ and _cuddle_ and _spoon._ “They’re your parameters, David. I think we can make it work.”

He turns the lights off and shuts the door before he gets under the covers with Patrick. He considers climbing in between the sheet and the quilt, just so there’s an extra layer between them, but that feels very high school, and nothing’s going to happen tonight, they’re both clear on that, so what’s the harm in a little skin contact?

The harm, he determines a moment later as Patrick shuffles up behind him, tentatively sliding one arm under David and bringing the other to cross his chest, slotting their knees together, the harm is that now he’ll know how this feels and will certainly tank the store, too distracted in his every waking moment to think of anything but being held by Patrick.

But the harm is also, he realizes the next morning, when he wakes to find he’s twisted in his sleep so that he’s facing Patrick, so that his nose is pressed to Patrick’s neck, so that his arms are twined around Patrick’s lower back — the harm, he realizes, is also tangled up in the joy, which is that this memory of being held by Patrick will fortify him until they circle back, check in, reevaluate, or whatever other stupid nonsense business phrase Patrick wants to use.

**Twelve**  
“So, how are we feeling?” Patrick asks, beaming, as he comes into the store a couple days before the opening.

“Um, do you want the honest answer or the putting-my-best-foot-forward answer?” David frowns down at the labels he’s applying. “And before you ask, no I have not called the electrician yet, yes I forgot about the insurance, but I’ll get to it.”

“Alright,” Patrick chuckles, clearly laughing at him, and David can’t believe he lets this man into his store. “And you’re definitely set on a soft launch?”

“Yes. Why? What’s wrong with a soft launch?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it, I just think—” Patrick leans back against the central display table, looking so at home here. “It’s a big deal, and maybe you should go all out, take out a page in the local paper, make it a thing—”

“So a hard launch,” David clarifies, “the exact thing I’m trying to avoid.”

“We could get a ribbon,” Patrick suggests.

“A what?”

“A ribbon. A big red ribbon. It’s the first new business to open in town in a bit, and we could, you know, make a ceremony of it — string a big red ribbon across the doors, and I’ll bring my oversized scissors—”

“Nope!” David drops the coiled wheel of label stickers and starts shoving Patrick to the exit. “You are the _least_ helpful —"

“I could make a speech!” Patrick calls as David manhandles him through the door. “We could break a champagne bottle against the building like they do when they christen ships —"

“No one’s _christening_ anything!” David yells after him, and of course _that’s_ what he’s declaring loudly as he steps outside, making the people outside the cafe and along the sidewalk turn to look. “It’s not what — not what it sounds like!” he shouts to them.

“You won’t even consider a _semi-firm_ opening?” Patrick asks.

“I hate the word opening. I hate it! We’re no longer having one. Nope. Bye!!”

**Thirteen**  
“I can’t believe I made it here before you,” David says as Patrick slides into the booth on the bench opposite him. He shouldn’t say things like that, shouldn’t start out perfectly nice evenings with these little jabs, but he keeps saying them and Patrick still keeps smiling at him like he’s doing now.

“Believe me, I’m stunned as well,” Patrick says dryly. “I had to go home and change.”

“Yes, I noticed that. You look very nice.”

“I know it’s just the cafe, but I thought something nicer was warranted.” Patrick adjusts the cuffs of his jacket and smiles shyly at David, and Patrick had thought _David_ had warranted something nicer. It’s just dinner, it’s just the cafe, but he’d been late — Patrick! late! — so that he could wear something nicer for _David._ “I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“Me too,” David murmurs, and then he has to focus on the menu or he’ll forget that this isn’t a date, that they aren’t doing that yet. “Ooh, blackberry cheesecake.”

“David, you can’t choose dessert before you even choose your dinner,” Patrick chides.

“Says who?”

“Says the mayor,” Patrick shoots back, and they both smile; it’s an inside joke now, David’s seeming inability to not tease Patrick about his title. “Do you want to split an appetizer?”

“Um, yes I would like an appetizer, but no I do not see the logic behind needing to _split_ anything. Should we get two baskets of onion rings?”

Patrick gives him a funny little look, but David’s mostly immune to those by now; immune to them in the sense that they still provoke a swoop in his stomach but they no longer make him nervous.

Patrick agrees to a serving of onion rings and also suggests a plate of mozzarella sticks, which makes David like him even more.

The night starts to go off the rails before Twyla’s even come to take their order. Jocelyn is first, descending on them like those drinking bird toys.

“Hi boys! Mind if I _jostle in_ on your dinner?” she exclaims, and David inhales a gulp of his water down the wrong internal pathway. “I won’t stay long, just had to stop by and say, Patrick, we love you no matter what!”

“Oh,” Patrick chuckles, “thanks so much, Jocelyn.”

“There will always be a home for you here in Schitt’s Creek,” she assures him. “Anywho! I have to run, I have a graduation to officiate!” And then she’s bopping away as quickly as she’d come.

“Wow,” David says, widening his eyes at Patrick. “She was even more _Jocelyn_ than normal.”

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees bracingly. “Sorry about that.”

David frowns; no one needs to apologize for Jocelyn, least of all Patrick but also not even Jocelyn, but then Twyla’s there, so he forgets about it until she smiles at them and adds, “We’ll miss you, Patrick, but it’s been a good run.”

“It’s been a good run?” David repeats, grinning at Patrick once they have the table to themselves again. “God, it sounds like you’re dying or something.”

“I know, people are being so dramatic about it,” Patrick sighs. “It’s not even official yet, or anything —"

“Wait — what?”

“Hey Patrick!”

“Oh god,” David mutters, because this time it’s Bob; he wouldn’t be surprised if everyone’s heard they’re here and has decided to come bombard Patrick about whatever he’s being, apparently, simultaneously feted and pitied for? If this keeps up, he’ll never get around to asking Patrick what he came here to ask.

Bob finishes his spiel, and their appetizers arrive, so it’s as David blows on a hot crusty onion ring that Patrick says, “Maybe we should’ve gone somewhere else, somewhere out of town. I didn’t think it would be _quite_ this nonstop, though.”

“Yeah, I have some questions?” David admits. “What are they all —"

“Well, well, well.” Ronnie’s found them, and David has to admit he enjoys whatever it is playing out on Patrick’s face. Ronnie sidles up and leans one arm on the back of the booth on Patrick’s side — a clear power play, in the way it makes Patrick lean back to look up at her. Two small and mighty people. “When I heard the news, I wasn’t sure whether to pop some champagne or text Ray to ask how you were holding up. In the sense that I want all the grisly details, of course.”

“Ha ha, thanks Ronnie,” Patrick manages.

“Mmm, I’d like some champagne,” David chimes in. Patrick gives him a look, but what can he say? Ronnie doesn’t hate _him._ “What are we celebrating, Ronnie?”

“Mayor McThumb here is stepping down,” Ronnie explains, jerking her own thumb in Patrick’s direction.

“Opting not to run for reelection, actually, and it’s not official yet —"

David drops his half-eaten mozzarella stick in shock. “You’re stepping down?”

“Again, I’m not stepping down, I’m just thinking about not running again. But David, you knew this.”

“Um, I most certainly did not! I know I’m, like, ‘barely meets expectations’ when it comes to listening to other people, but I think I would have remembered _that.”_

“You know, I was just going to pop in for a second but now that I’m here...” Ronnie mutters, sliding into the booth next to David and grabbing a mozzarella stick.

“Can you not —" Patrick grits his teeth as Ronnie shows no intention of moving, then turns back to David. “I just — I figured you knew, figured your mom had told you, or something, since —" But his lips seem to catch on the rest of the sentence and David spies the first creep of a blush on his cheeks and neck. “Oh.”

“No _oh,_ the rest of the class isn’t there yet. What? What?!”

“I assumed you knew, since you...asked me out on a date.”

Ronnie inhales sharply to David’s right.

“But this isn’t —" His eyes snag on Patrick’s suit jacket, and his wide eyes, and _oh_ indeed. “Ohmygod. You thought this was a date. I can— I can see how this would seem— given—” He remembers Ronnie’s there in time to not babble on about their recent emotional unburdenings, the flirting, the scheduled check-in that Patrick has a countdown for on his phone, the nerd. “Um, okay, I am — I am so sorry I wasn’t more clear, I get how this looks now.”

“Sooo, not a date then,” Patrick says slowly, avoiding David’s eyes.

“Um, no. I... I was actually going to ask if you wanted to work part-time at the store? In, like, a business consultancy capacity? My current business advisor, aka you, told me I could probably get some grant money that would allow me to bring on additional help, and I thought given your mayoral position you wouldn’t want a full-time commitment, though given the, um, recent developments, maybe —"

“I do want that,” Patrick blurts out, and Patrick Brewer doesn’t _blurt;_ Patrick Brewer doesn’t just _jump into things,_ which means he’s probably been thinking about this too, has probably been drafting a proposal to put to David about how they should be business partners. He wonders if Patrick would read the proposal to him over the phone, slow and sexy. “Um. That isn’t _why_ I’m planning to not run for re-election —"

“You mean step down,” Ronnie cuts in.

“But it — I was hoping — yeah, David,” he finishes, and if this isn’t a date, why does David feel this way?

“Alright, this is getting boring,” Ronnie announces, climbing back out of the booth. David starts; he’d forgotten she was there, again, which is usually not the case with Ronnie. She has _presence._ “I came here to rub it in but you don’t seem bummed at all.”

“Hey Ronnie, since you’re here,” Patrick says suddenly, and he looks so gleeful David thinks he should be bouncing on the bench like an excited little kid. “I actually already know whom I want to tap for my successor.”

“It’s Jocelyn, isn’t it?” Ronnie asks, rolling her eyes. “That damn family is a dynasty. Can’t shake ‘em.”

“No, not Jocelyn.” Patrick glances at David, suppressing a grin, and David wants to roll his eyes too, and he would, if Patrick weren’t so cute and earnest. “Ronnie, I think you should run for mayor, and I’d be happy to throw my weight behind you.”

The disdainful look is frozen on Ronnie’s face for a second, and then she takes a full step backwards. “Me —” She glances around as if to see if anyone heard it. “You want _me_ to — If this is a joke, Brewer, I swear —"

“No joke,” Patrick promises, doing a little _cross my heart_ sign over his chest. “I think you would be an outstanding, upstanding mayor. You take no nonsense and you’re a great motivator, you know everyone and how to get them to give you what you need, you’re tireless, and you love this town.” Ronnie makes a shooing motion, but Patrick presses on, smiling more gently now. “You do. Everyone knows it. And I think if you gave them the chance, this town would show you how much they appreciate and trust you in return.”

Ronnie blinks, open-mouthed, at him, then at David. “Can you believe this?” she asks him. “I can’t stand this guy.” But she’s brushing at the corner of one eye with her knuckle.

“I think you should think about it, Ronnie,” David tells her softly. He suspects his input isn’t needed; he thinks, in a twisted way he understands too well, that getting Patrick’s support is ultimately more important because of their strained relationship. Still, she _would_ be amazing and he’ll tell anyone who listens.

“Hmph.” Ronnie crosses her arms and regards Patrick again, clearly starting to recover from the shock. “Maybe as my first act as mayor, I can exile you from town.”

“Pretty sure that’s not within the powers of the position, but you might as well try,” Patrick chuckles. Then he glances at David, and David himself can’t believe the visible softening that happens in his eyes and around his mouth; he’s seeing it, and he still can’t believe it. “Though I don’t think I’m going anywhere for a while.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Ronnie sighs with affected disappointment. David grins; they may never be pals, but this is a dynamic he hopes they could all live with. “Well, I’m going to go get myself a stiff drink, after all this. Oh, and happy birthday, David.”

David cringes and squeezes his eyes shut; maybe by the time he opens them, their mains will be here and he can use the excuse of shoving his mouth full to not address what she’s just said?

No luck. When he peeps one eye open, the only plates on the table are the empty ones from their appetizers and Patrick’s still there, looking, if possible, even more gleeful than before.

“We don’t need to—” David starts to say hopelessly.

“It’s your _birthday?”_ Patrick crows. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“Because of _this!”_ he says. “Because birthdays are built to be disappointing and I didn’t want you to get all excited when I’ll probably just be miserable the whole time.”

“Are you miserable, David?”

He starts to say _no_ automatically, but he chokes on the word, because he’s answered variations of that question a thousand times in his life and he’s always lied, but this _no,_ uttered on a non-date with a cute guy he wants to go into business with, a non-date that keeps getting interrupted — well, this _no_ isn’t a lie. “Not at the moment,” he bites out, feeling winded.

“Well, that’s something.” Patrick just looks at him with his patented upside-down smile, shaking his head a little. “I’m guessing you won’t tell me how old you are?”

“What, so you can ask Twyla to stick an excessive number of candles on a day-old muffin? No thank you.” He crosses his arms, trying to project aloofness.

“That’s okay. I imagine you’ll be asking Ray or myself to do your taxes for you next year, and I can just check your birth date then.”

“That’s illegal,” David sniffs, hoping that’s true.

“We do what we gotta do. Hey,” he says softly, and when David looks up, Patrick’s face is wide open, scary-honest, the kind of look that would’ve seen David running to the hills just a year or two ago. “I’m really glad I get to spend your birthday with you. I consider it an honor.”

 _“O_ kay, that’s a bit much,” David says, but he empathizes with Ronnie and the whole crying-that-sneaks-up-on-you now; Patrick’s stealthy sincerity is fierce.

Patrick excuses himself to use the restroom, and David checks his phone but there are only a few rude gifs from Stevie; Alexis must still be at her graduation, his mom at her performance.

When Patrick comes back to the booth, he’s got another look that David can’t parse, but it’s explained not even a minute later when Twyla appears with a massive slice of cheesecake, into which is stuck a single candle.

“Someone told me it was your birthday,” she beams. “And I was specifically told not to sing, which is really a shame because I’m workshopping a doo-wop style rendition? Maybe next year.” She deposits the plate and two forks, touches David on the shoulder, and makes herself scarce.

David blinks at the flame for a second, then looks up at Patrick. “You asked her not to sing?”

“Well.” Patrick looks so pleased with himself. “I figured you deserved one nice thing on your birthday.”

“You told me I couldn’t have dessert first,” David accuses.

“Okay, two nice things.”

David must linger too long, because Patrick ducks his head and reaches for a fork. David catches his hand.

“Three nice things,” he murmurs.

He’s tempted to keep holding Patrick’s hand, but this is still not a date and it’s very public and he thinks they need to have a conversation or two before they can start engaging in PDA in the middle of the cafe dinner rush.

“Um, this is a lot of dairy,” he chuckles as he releases Patrick and takes up the other fork.

“It is, it is.” Patrick’s tongue plays with the tines of the fork as he watches David take a first bite. “It’s a good thing you’re not sharing a bed with anyone tonight.”

And David wants to kiss him right there, cafe dinner rush be damned. But they have a plan, and he knows how much plans mean to Patrick. He can wait a little longer.

Patrick walks him home, carrying his leftovers — neither of them had been hungry for dinner after the cheesecake, and Patrick had only said “I told you so” once, which David can live with. David’s doubly burdened, with a box of his leftover alfredo and another holding an extra cheesecake slice Twyla had wrapped up for him as a birthday gift. It means he can’t hold Patrick’s hand as they walk, but he’s not sure where they stand on that anyway, so he just cradles the takeout containers and settles for the occasional brush of Patrick’s shoulder against his.

He stops outside of Ray’s to say goodnight, but Patrick keeps walking, not even looking back to see if David is following. He wonders if Patrick’s reconsidering the “not sharing a bed with anyone tonight” thing. Even if he’s not — David allows himself one unbridled smile, here on the dark sidewalk, and then he trots to catch up.

Patrick walks him all the way to the door of room 7. There’s a light on inside, and David doesn’t know how he’s supposed to merge this new, precious bubble with Patrick into the chaos that surely lays in wait inside.

Patrick turns to face him under one of the outdoor flood lamps. “Well, that was a fun night, David.”

“It was, it was,” David agrees distractedly. “Could we, um—”

Patrick tilts his head, clearly either not following or set on making this difficult.

“It’s just — the light,” he blurts out. “Can we not stand so close to the light? It attracts all kinds of moths and other winged things.”

“Oh, is that a problem?”

David grimaces at him. “Kind of, yeah.”

“Well in that case.” Patrick steps backwards so he’s even _closer_ to the accursed light.

 _“Okay._ Well. That’s not—” David can’t even gesture properly with his load of leftovers that he’ll probably wake up at midnight to eat. “Fine!” And he steps back too, further into the dark parking lot, leaving a gap of a couple meters between them.

“Can you still hear me?” Patrick calls.

“Shhh, shuush!!” he says hastily, because between one and three of the nosiest people David knows are in the rooms behind Patrick and he does _not_ need them alerted to what’s going on out here. Whatever _is_ going on out here. “Have we not had enough of the town’s participation tonight already?”

Patrick laughs, soft and fond and so full that his whole body moves with it, his heading ducking over his packaged sandwich. He blinks up at David, and there are probably moths _touching him_ right now but he’s awash in the cheap floodlight and he looks sinfully angelic as he says, “Happy birthday, David.”

“Well.” David clears his throat and blinks rapidly, looking down the length of the motel. “Um, happy retirement, Patrick.”

“Oh, thank you so much. And hey, congratulations on your thriving store.”

“Mm! Congratulations on _your_ offer of employment to work at said store.”

“I know a guy,” Patrick shrugs, and David is physically incapable of fighting the smile that’s taken over his face. They just stand there, smiling stupidly at each other amidst the cricket song and the gentle hum of a TV from room 8, and David makes up his mind.

“Um, do you think—” He steps a bit closer, and Patrick mirrors him. “Do you think two people who aren’t yet dating but who have firm plans to discuss the prospect of dating in the near future — do you think those people could, maybe, kiss?”

“I love it when you talk prospects to me,” Patrick says, and he takes another big step.

“Oh, shit, wait,” David says, and Patrick almost falls forward as David darts around him and fumbles with the door handle. “Wait, wait,” he calls behind him, then, seeing Alexis gasp and beam at his appearance, he says, “Alexis, we can celebrate each other’s life milestones in a minute, I just need you to stay in here and not peek out the blinds. Do you promise?”

She pouts. “Well, now I _want_ to peek!”

“I know, but—” David places his leftovers on the table and squeezes his eyes shut. “If you love me at all, please. No peeking.”

For good measure, he still pinches Patrick’s sleeve and pulls him down the sidewalk a bit (it’s a cheap material; it can stand the abuse), so that even if Alexis _does_ peek, she’ll hopefully see very little.

“I just wanted to safely deposit the cheesecake,” he explains breathlessly as he turns around.

Patrick laughs, and he’d apparently already been leaning in because David gets a waft of cheesecake breath with the laugh, but he doesn’t even mind; he can’t possibly mind when it means that Patrick is laughing during their first kiss, when they’re both laughing, when they’re standing in that sweet spot of darkness between two of the outdoor lights and their noses are bumping and the toes of their shoes are bumping and they’re laughing and kissing.

They break apart when a door at the other end of the motel slams. David bestows his resultant, giddy laugh on Patrick’s left shoulder.

Patrick smoothes a hand up and down David’s back a few times, and then he’s pulling slightly back, looking at David, as best David can tell in the shadow.

“Thank you,” Patrick murmurs.

“Don’t start that again,” David jokes half-heartedly. “We’ll be here all night.”

“Oh, okay,” Patrick says, and he kisses him again.

Patrick walks him back to his door, and this time they do hold hands. The walk is too short, and David considers suggesting they make a lap around the motel, but he knows himself and he knows he’ll end up suggesting they take advantage of the dark back wall of the building, and he has another suggestion he’d rather make.

“So, follow-up question to my earlier question,” he says, poking Patrick’s chest. “I know we have an appointment, but do you think that two people, who are both thriving professionally and making stellar independent choices and who are so clearly supported by their community, could start dating sooner than planned?”

“I don’t know, David,” Patrick says solemnly, and David’s stomach has time to plummet clear through the sidewalk before he goes on, “you told me tonight wasn’t a date.”

“Okay, I mean, do you want to tell people we shared our first date with Jocelyn and Bob and Ronnie and Twyla?!”

“You’re already thinking about telling people the story of our relationship?” Patrick asks, his voice high and delighted.

“No,” David lies. “But if I _were,_ I would make our first date less...communal.”

“Think of it this way,” Patrick offers, and he’s snugged his arms around David’s waist, and Alexis can definitely see them if she’s peeking through the curtain, which she definitely is. “In the single parent analogy, I brought my child on our first date.”

“Yeah, I don’t like that.”

“It’s part of who I am, David.” Patrick raises his eyebrows. “And if you can’t accept that—”

“Alright, but it could be _part of who you are_ and still not come on our dates with us, though!”

Patrick just presses on sincerely, “I had a good time tonight, David.”

“Hmm.” David wonders if, with time, he will be able to accept that he’s allowed to look at Patrick, now — just look, whenever and however long he wants. “I...had a good time as well, despite myself.”

“I would like to continue having a good time with you.” Patrick winces and laughs, tipping his head forward to bump slightly against David’s shoulder. “That’s not — I didn’t mean that to be so dirty.”

“I want that too,” David says. “Dirty or not.”

For the dozenth time that night, Patrick looks at him like he’s a revelation. “Can we talk in the morning?”

“We can talk whenever you like. You could even—” David bites his lip and leans in. “—send me a calendar invite.”

“Oh god.” Patrick releases him and pushes him towards the door. “Go to bed before I let you have your way with me.”

David puts his hand on the doorknob but leans back against the wood, watching Patrick walk backwards across the parking lot.

“Good night, David!” Patrick whisper-calls.

David presses his lips together on a smile. “Good night, Mr. Mayor.”


End file.
